..LIBRARY 

UF    i'M 

UNIVERSITY   OF   CALIFORNIA 


Received .... 
Accessions  No. 


188   5 


db 


THE  SHADOW  OF  CHRISTIANITY 


OR 


THE  GENESIS  OF  THE  CHEISTIAN  STATE, 


A   TREATISE    FOR    THE    TIMES, 


BY  THE  AUTHOR  OF  THE  APOCATA8TA8IS. 


Stultum  est  imperare  caeteris  qui  nescit  sibi." 


gw  f  0*fe  : 

PUBLISHED   BY  HUEDv&  HOUGHTON,, 
Boston  ;  E.  P.  BUTTON  &  Co. 


PREFACE 


The  following  treatise  was  written  in  the  Winter  and  Spring 
of  1862-3,  occasioned  by  a  request  for  contributions  to  the  politi- 
cal department  of  a  religious  newspaper.  But  running  obstinate- 
ly into  form  and  dimensions  not  suited  to  that  purpose,  it  was 
laid  aside  with  much  other  spoiled  foolscap,  where  perhaps  it 
should  have  been  left 

The  state  of  the  country  which  suggested  the  subject  and 
method  of  its  treatment  no  longer  exists.  But  the  principles  and 
facts  and  arguments  of  the  treatise  have  little  peculiar  relation  to 
any  one  time  or  one  country.  Allusions  to  events  as  present 
which  were  passing  two  years  ago,  and  illustrations  by  condi- 
tions and  relations  of  things  which  have  become  historical,  have 
not,  therefore,  been  altered. 

The  subject  is  trite  to  thinking  American  minds.  Perhaps 
the  method  of  treating  it,  and  some  of  the  aspects  and  illustra- 
tions of  it  thereby  presented,  are  not  so.  Certainly  it  is  one  which 
has  sufficient  need  of  being  urged  in  everyway  which  can  be 
made  effective,  upon  the  consideration  of  both  thinking  and  un- 
thinking men,  and  especially  of  those  who  aim  to  be  leaders  in 
politics  and  statesmanship,  men  who  are  not  by  any  means  the 
most  profoundly  thoughtful  class  in  the  community. 

If  the  treatise  shall  serve  to  increase,  in  the  minds  of  any 
such,  or  of  others,  a  feeling  of  the  desirableness  and  of  the  neces- 
sity of  the  influence  of  Christianity  in  the  State,  and  the  confi- 
dence of  any  in  its  power  to  mould  the  State  more  and  more  into 


its  true  form  ;  if  it  shall  aid,  in  however  small  measure,  to  ex- 
tend the  application  of  the  principles  of  Christianity  wider  and 
deeper  to  the  political,  industrial  and  business  relations  of  men, 
it  will  accomplish,  so  far,  what  should  be  the  highest  aim  of 
every  Christian  man  and  woman — the  extension  of  the  Kingdom 
of  God  on  earth. 

Our  Christianity  has  just  been  subjected  to  one  of  the  seve- 
rest trials  to  which  the  religion  of  a  nation  was  ever  exposed. 
One  short  year  ago  we  ourselves  and  the  friends  of  true  Chris- 
tianity in  all  the  world  trembled  lest  it  should  prove  unequal  to 
the  occasion.  By  God's  grace  it  stood  the  test.  Let  us,  there- 
fore, thank  God  and  take  courage.  If,  however,  we  may  justly 
be  encouraged  from  the  past,  we  have  less  reason  for  self-com- 
placency at  what  has  been  done  than  for  shame  at  what  is  not 
done.  For  to  what  a  small  part  of  the  whole  field  of  the  rela- 
tions of  men,  as  citizens  of  the  State,  relations  which  ought  to  be 
under  the  control  of  the  principles  of  Christianity,  have  they  yet 
been  applied  !  Still,  therefore,  there  is  need  to  sow  beside  all 
waters,  and  since  God's  coulter  has  now  well  broken  the  field,  let 
us  scatter  wide  the  good  seed  while  the  furrows  are  fresh. 


THE  SHADOW  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE     CHURCH. 

"  I  will  give  my  laws  into  their  understanding,  and  upon  their 
heart  will  I  write  them." — SEPTUAGINT. 

"  If  the  Son  shall  make  you  free  ye  shall  be  free  indeed. ' '— J.  C. 

Christianity  attains  its  earthly  realization  in  those 
persons  in  whom  there  is  such  a  mutual  relation  be- 
tween spiritual  truths  and  the  faculties  receptive  of 
them  that  they  "  receive  the  love  of  the  truth"  at 
the  same  time  with  the  knowledge  of  it,  and  as  the 
condition  of  the  true  knowledge  of  it.  They  have 
not  only  an  intellectual  relation  of  assent  to  the 
truth,  but  that  moral  correlativeness  to  the  charac- 
ter of  the  truth  which  makes  them  capable  of  recog- 
nizing, willingly  receiving,  and  knowing  the  truth, 
that  it  is  truth.  It  is  written  on  their  heart  as  well 
as  admitted  into  their  understanding.  It  is  plain 
that  the  relation  of  such  persons  to  truth  as  LAW, 
or  in  the  form  of  commands  (which  is  always  the 
form  of  spiritual  truth)  to  be  obeyed,  is  the  relation 
of  willing  obedience,  of  free  conformity  to  the  law. 


6  THE     CHU  R  CH. 

They  know  the  truth,  and  the  truth  has  made  them 
free.  They  are  free  from  the  relation  of  slaves  to 
the  false,  the  base,  the  sinful,  and  from  that  of  un- 
willing or  counterwilling  to  the  true  and  good. 

Spiritual  truth  always  demands  that  it  be  believed 
and  obeyed,  and  inasmuch  as  it  is  addressed  to  the 
spiritual  faculties  of  which  the  will  is  the  presiding 
organ,  it  demands  that  it  be  cordially  believed,  and 
willingly  obeyed,  freely,  that  is,  without  compul- 
sion cr  even  moral  constraint.  It  demands  the  obe- 
dience of  the  free,  willing  spirit ;  in  short  it  demands 
spiritual  obedience.  Any  other  obedience  in  spiri- 
tual relations  is  absurd,  contradictory  to  the  idea,  and 
so  ceases  to  be  obedience,  so  that  where  the  moral 
correlation  to  the  truth,  and  to  God  the  source  of  it, 
is  wanting,  obedience  is  impossible.  There  can  con- 
sequently be  no  place  for  coercion  in  regard  to  spiri- 
tual obedience.  Many  truths  are  impossible  to  be 
known  or  believed,  recognized  as  true  by  spiritual 
perception,  or  even  admitted  into  the  understanding 
in  the  absence  of  the  requisite  moral  conditions  ; 
they  must  first  be  "written  on  the  heart."  For 
how  can  the  proud  man  come  to  the  knowledge  of 
that,  to  know  which  implies  humility?  How  can  the 
pharisee  make  the  prayer  of  the  publican  ?  recognize, 
or  admit  the  duty  of  making  such  a  prayer  ?  And 
so  in  general,  since  the  true  knowledge  of  the  pecu- 
liar and  most  important  doctrines  of  Christianity  im- 
plies a  spiritual  preconformity  to  them,  and  willing 
reception  of  them,  where  the  moral  quality  is  hetero- 
geneous, and  the  will  is  averse,  such  knowledge  is  im- 
possible. It  is  certain,  then,  that  there  must  be  great 
and  unreconcilable  differences  of  opinion  between 
those  who  hold  the  relation  to  spiritual  truth  which 


THE    CHURCH.  7 

is  the  condition  of  knowledge  and  obedience,  and  those 
who  do  not.  This  difference  of  relation  to  truth  and 
consequent  duty,  is  in  fact  an  essential  difference  and 
the  most  important  difference  among  men. 

A  community  of  persons,  having  such  relation  to 
spiritual  truth  that  they  recognize,  willingly  believe, 
and  freely  obey  it  as  fast  and  as  far  as  it  is  pre- 
sented to  them,  associated  and  organized  in  order 
more  and  more  to  know,  become  conformed  to,  and 
make  known  religious  truth,  is  a  CHURCH.  It  is 
obvious  that  the  Church  if  constituted  according  to 
the  Christian  idea,  and  so  as  to  be  truly  a  COMMUNI- 
TY, must  consist  exclusively  of  persons  having  the 
relation  to  religious  truth  just  spoken  of.  For  this 
is  the  essential  element  of  their  unity,  this  is  u  the 
communion  of  saints,"  in  which,  and  by  which  they 
are  associated  and  become  of  the  same  kind,  so  that, 
of  necessity,  nothing  heterogeneous,  in  this  respect, 
can  properly  be  of  the  community,  but  must  be  for- 
eign and  outward  in  relation  to  it. 

That  which  is  common  to  all  the  members  of  a 
properly  constituted  church  is  their  moral  relation 
to  the  truth  when  fully  presented  to  the  appropriate 
faculties.  There  is  not  in  all  respects  a  common 
knowledge,  or  a  common  and  same  amount  of  know- 
ledge. The  purpose  of  the  community  in  regard  to 
itself  is  to  increase  in  all  its  members  the  knowledge 
of  the  truth,  and  the  performance  of  the  religious 
and  moral  duties  always  demanded  by  it.  Religious 
truths,  like  other  knowledge,  are  successively  acquir- 
ed, and  in  order  to  the  true  and  full  apprehension  of 
them,  there  may  be  necessary  both  instruction  and 
exhortation.  The  church,  therefore,  needs,  in  order 
to  its  true  ends,  certain  functions  to  be  performed 


8  THE   CHURCH. 

within  it  ;  and  besides  the  mutual  communications 
and  assistance  of  its  members,  the  true  life,  know- 
ledge, and  duties  of  the  church  are  best  promoted  by 
certain  officers  or  organs  specially  devoted  to  these 
ends.  The  church  has  also  a  most  important  rela- 
tion to  those  not  of  its  own  community,  to  those 
without,  namely,  to  proclaim  the  truth  to  them ; 
for  which  it  must  have  appropriate  organs.  It  is 
manifest  that  these  organs  of  the  church  both  for  in- 
ternal and  external  use,  must  partake  of  the  common 
relation  to  the  truth.  They  must  therefore  be  evol- 
ved from  within  the  church  itself;  that  is,  the  church, 
like  all  true  organisms,  is  ^self-organized .  But  the 
organific  principle,  as  in  the  natural  world,  is  the 
creative  act  of  God. 

The  church  needs  to  be  instructed,  guided,  govern- 
ed, and  the  proper  officers  of  the  church  may  teach, 
reprove,  rebuke,  with  all  authority.  But  it  is  plain 
that  it  must  be  spiritual  authority,  to  be  manifested, 
and  exercised,  and  legitimated,  by  so  rightly  divid- 
ing and  skillfully  presenting  religious  truth  to  minds 
pre-adapted  to  its  recognition  and  reception,  that  the 
obligation  to  believe  and  obey  it  shall,  by  such 
minds,  be  felt  and  acknowledged.  The  church  by  its 
peculiar  endowment  is  thus  of  necessity  made  the 
judge  whether  its  officers  do  exercise  spiritual  autho- 
rity, and,  in  general,  of  their  qualifications,  as  well 
as  of  those  of  persons  asking  admission  as  new  mem- 
bers to  their  community,  for  only  those  who  have 
the  requisite  relation  to  spiritual  truth  can  determine 
whether  others  partake  of  the  same. 

Another  fact  is  obvious  here,  namely,  that  the 
obedience  rendered  to  the  authority  exercised  in  the 
church  must  be  spiritual  obedience,  free,  spontan- 


TH  E     CHURCH  .  9 

ecus,  willing  obedience,  obedience  of  the  will,  since 
no  other  obedience  is  recognized,  or  satisfies  the  de- 
mand, in  spiritual  relations — but  compulsion  of  the 
will  is  impossible.  There  can,  therefore,  be  no  ef- 
fective coercion  of  spiritual  obedience.  Certain  out- 
ward acts  may  be  compelled,  but  that  which  was  es- 
sential to  the  required  obedience  is  wanting,  the  act 
becomes  instantly  something  else.  If  any  member 
of  the  church  carelessly  admitted  is  found  not  to  re- 
cognize the  truth,  nor  to  admit  its  claims  to  his  be- 
lief and  obedience,  does  not  govern  himself  by  the 
law  written  on  his  heart,  the  church  is  powerless  to 
exact  obedience,  it  can  only  ask  him  to  leave  a  com- 
munity in  which  he  does  not  belong. 

Thus  it  appears  that  the  whole  constitution  and 
organization  of  the  church  are  determined  by  its  pe- 
culiar relation  to  religious  truth,  a  relation  every- 
where in  the  New  Testament  asserted  as  a  fact,  and 
confirmed  by  the  experience  ol  all  those  who  partake 
of  it.  From  this  it  results  that  the  church  is  self- 
organizing,  the  form  being  but  the  manifestation  of 
the  idea,  as  in  all  other  true  organisms.  Any  inter- 
ference from  without  could,  evidently,  only  produce 
deformity  or  monstrosity.  All  its  organs  must  be 
homogeneous  with  it,  and  as  the  church  is  ultimate 
judge  of  that  fact  they  must  be  the  evolution  of  its 
own  life  and  under  its  own  control.  For  the  autho- 
rity of  the  officers  of  the  church  is  spiritual  authori- 
ty, that  is,  the  authority  of  the  truth,  but  to  the 
church  belongs  the  endowment  of  recognizing  the 
truth,  while  in  any  individual  member,  even  per- 
haps in  the  Teacher  himself,  this  endowment  might 
be  found  wanting. 

The  church  is  also  self -legislating.     N  ot  in  the 


10  THE     CHURCH. 

sense  that  it  enacts  for  law  its  own  will — this  no  true 
legislature  ever  does — hut  its  relation  to  Christian 
truth  makes  it  a  criterion  and  interpreter  of  the  laws 
of  Christ's  kingdom,  so  that  it  becomes  as  it  were  an 
Assessor  Christi  ;  and  because  no  earthly  power 
outside  of  the  church  itself  may  rightfully  legislate 
for  it. 

The  church  is,  moreover,  self-governing.  Not 
merely  because  it  is  self-legislating,  but  also  because 
free  obedience  to  spiritual  authority — which  is  the 
only  authority  and  the  only  obedience  that  can  have 
place  in  the  church — is  the  most  perfect  form  of 
self-government.  And  this  is  common  to  all  the  true 
members  of  the  community,  being  implied  in  that 
which  constitutes  them  a  community.  This  is  also 
the  most  perfect  form  of  freedom.  This  it  is  "  to  be 
free  indeed,"  since  compulsion  is  contradictory  and 
antagonistic  to  the  very  idea  of  the  relation. 

The  church,  then,  defined  according  to  its  idea,  is 
a  self-organizing,  self-legislating,  self-governing,  free 
DEMOCRACY. 

Such,  it  is  plain,  must  be,  and  remain,  the  form 
of  the  church,  if  the  embody  ment  truly  expresses 
the  living  idea  within  it,  and  if  the  church  never  for- 
gets the  true  ends  of  its  organization,  namely,  to 
know  by  moral  conformity  to  it,  and  to  make  known, 
spiritual  truth,  even  up  to  that  highest  height,  the 
"  knowledge  of  God  and  of  Jesus  Christ  which  is 
eternal  life." 

Eut  Christian  men,  and  members  of  the  church 
community,  even  if  they  are  properly  such,  are  only 
becoming,  and  are  not  yet  fully,  the  new  creation 
which  is  to  be  the  end  of  their  progress.  — 
If,  therefore,  as  there  is  always  danger,  the  spiritual 


THECHURCH.  11 

in  the  church,  through  un watchfulness,  and  unfaith- 
fulness in  regard  to  the  conditions  of  true  knowing, 
fails  to  direct  and  control  the  conduct  of  the  church, 
fails  to  legislate  in  the  church,  two  methods  of  aber- 
ration from  the  true  form,  and  from  the  true  ends 
of  the  church  are  not  only  possible,  but  alas  !  how 
often  have  they  been  actual  in  all  the  ages  of  Chris- 
tianity. 

I.  The  first  danger  arises  from  the  admission  of 
unspiritual  members  to  the  church,  those  who  have 
no  spiritual  relation  to  the  truth.  On  this  point  the 
very  piety  of  the  church  is  a  source  of  danger  to  it  ; 
for  nothing  is  more  natural  or  more  proper  than  that 
Christians  should  rejoice  at  what  they  constantly  pray 
for — additions  to  their  number.  Their  best  feelings 
here  may  disturb  their  judgment,  and  make  them 
liable  to  fall  into  the  common  error  of  believing 
what  they  earnestly  desire  to  find  true,  rather  than 
to  insist  on  rigid  evidence.  Such  errors  of  judg- 
ment a  few  times  repeated  introduce  into  the  church 
a  foreign  and  unassimilated  element.  This  element, 
for  obvious  reasons,  tends,  always,  to  increase  itself. 
The  church  is  no  longer  a  community,  it  is  hetero- 
geneous. There  is  no  longer  unity  but  duality. 
The  church  is  divided  into  parties.  Soon  there  will 
be  a  demand  that  the  doctrines  of  the  church  be  mo- 
dified,— that  the  rules  for  the  admission  of  members 
be  relaxed — that  the  preacher  be  exchanged  for  a 
more  popular  one  in  order  to  "build  up  the  church" 
Such  cases,  unhappily,  are  not  extremely  rare,  so 
that  we  know  their  results.  The  unspiritual  element, 
if  not  too  large,  may  after  infinite  trouble  be  ex- 
pelled ;  or,  which  is  more  usual,  the  spiritual  ele- 
ment, weary  of  contention,  which  is  not  to  its  taste, 


12  THECHURCH. 

withdraws,  going  forth  empty  of  all  but  the  truth, 
the  only  possession  accumulated  by  them  not  desired 
by  their  successors. 

II.  The  second  and  most  disastrous  form  of  aber- 
ration is  where  the  church  gives  up,  or  is  deprived 
of  its  self-legislating  power ;  for  which  is  substituted 
the  usurped  legislation  of  its  officers,  with  vary- 
ing prerogatives  in  regard  to  prescribing  their  own 
functions  and  appointing  their  successors.  Such  a 
relation  between  the  church  and  its  officers  may  be- 
come gradually  established  through  the  natural  hu- 
mility and  self-diffidence  of  spiritual  men  paying 
undue  deference  to  the  presumed  superior  qualifica- 
tions of  others,  and  especially  by  imposing  upon  fa- 
vorite teachers  functions  the  exercise  of  which  will 
afterwards  be  claimed  as  a  right  by  those  of  a  diffe- 
rent character.  But  however  this  relation  may  ori- 
ginate it  not  only  destroys  the  unity  of  the  church 
but  becomes  sooner  or  later  a  deadly  and  fatal  du- 
ality. The  church  is  no  longer  a  community.  It 
has  ceased  to  be  self-organizing  for  it  is  no  longer 
an  organism.  It  is  not  self-legislating.  It  is  not 
self-governed.  It  is  not  free.  For  the  clergy  by 
assuming  a  position  over  against,  and  above  the 
church,  as  its  governors,  instead  of  being  its  organs, 
thereby  claim  a  peculiar  endowment  of  which  the 
church  does  not  partake,  and  thus  show  themselves 
ignorant  of  the  true  nature  of  spiritual  authority. 
They  may,  therefore,  and  will  shortly,  enact  laws 
and  prescribe  doctrines  for  the  church  to  which  no 
spiritual  obedience  can  be  rendered.  The  further 
natural  results  of  this  relation  can  be  easily  foretold 
were  it  not  that  so  many  historical  exhibitions  of 
them  render  it  unnecessary.  It  is  not  essential  to 


TH  E     CH  UR  CH  .  1& 

my  purpose  in  this  introductory  chapter  to  follow 
the  retrograde  development  and  transformation  of 
the  Christian  ministry  into  a  priesthood,  and  of  the 
priesthood  into  a  hierarchy ;  to  point  out  how  the 
Christian  church  becomes  a  hierarchical  State  in  which 
the  priests  are  the  governing  class  and  the  spiritual 
body  the  subjects  ;  in  which  laws}  ordinances,  dog- 
mas, customs,  ceremonies  are — like  the  legislation  of 
other  aristocratic  governments — prescribed  primarily 
for  the  profit  of  the  governors,  but  are  nevertheless 
to  be  obeyed,  if  not  with  spiritual  and  free  obedience 
then  by  persuasion  of  fire  and  sword.  And  other 
teachings  are  not  to  be  tolerated  under  the  same 
penalty  ;  for  heresy  here  is  equivalent  to  treason  in 
other  States. 

Thus  "God's  heritage"  becomes  the  heritage  and 
inheritance  of  usurpers  who  dare  to  call  themselves 
God's  vicegerents,  a  heritage  so  skilfully  farmed  that 
it  distributes  worldly  rank,  honors,  dignities,  emolu- 
ments and  wealth  to  its  earthly  possessors,  who 
make  most  profitable  merchandise  of  God's  people, 
while  to  the  people  themselves  in  proportion  as  they 
have  demanded  the  rights  of  spiritual  men,  they  have 
awarded  tyranny,  poverty,  slavery,  dungeons,  gib- 
bets and  stakes.  All  these  results  have  happened 
not  by  accident,  but  will  always  happen  in  the  ab- 
sence of  strong  counteracting  causes,  as  the  natural 
development  of  the  consequences  of  the  false  relation 
of  the  spiritual  body  to  an  unspiritual  head.  Even  in 
the  least  developed,  and  in  the  most  restrained  and 
coerced  forms  of  this  relation,  and  where  there  may 
be  much  spiritual  life  in  the  head  as  well  as  in  the 
body,  the  perverting  and  emasculating  influence  of 
the  relation  is  exhibited  not  rarely  all  the  way  from 


14  THE     CHURCH. 

the  pretended  Epistles  of  Ignatius  down  to  the  last 
episcopal  convention. 

It  is  a  remarkable  proof  of  the  divine  energy  and 
persistence  of  the  spiritual  life  in  the  church, 
and  of  the  truth  of  the  promises  for  its  protection, 
that  under  the  government  of  Apostolic  successors  ? 
who  kept  armed  retainers  of  their  own,  besides  con- 
troling  the  whole  civil  power  for  the  enforcement  of 
their  spiritual  authority  !  "teaching  for  doctrine 
the  commandments  of  men";  under  every  form  and 
degree  of  oppression  ;  under  however  thick  incrusta- 
tions of  superstition ;  it  has  often  shaken  and  lifted 
the  incumbent  masses,  and  in  spite  of  all  repression 
has  at  length  come  forth,  asserting  its  divine  origin 
and  God-given  prerogatives,  until  it  has  put  its  hie- 
rarchical enemies  with  their  secular  allies  everywhere 
on  the  defensive,  and  at  many  points  has  resumed  its 
full,  legitimate,  self-legislating,  and  self-governing 
power. 

The  church,  then,  rightly  constituted,  and  duly 
organized,  consists  of  persons,  whether  teachers  or 
taught,  governors  or  governed,  who  are  ready  to 
yield  spiritual  obedience  to  all  spiritual  truth,  and 
not  only  to  all  spiritual  authority  and  laws  of  the 
church,  but  also  to  all  civil  authority  and  true  laws 
of  the  State,  in  short  to  the  laws  of  all  their  earthly 
relations  so  far  as  they  know  or  have  the  means  of 
knowing  them.  They  are  persons  in  whom  are  be- 
coming realized  the  highest  ends  possible  for  them 
as  men.  In  them  is  attained  the  true  purpose  of 
God  in  their  creation.  The  Church  is  the  earthly 
SUBSTANCE  OF  CHRISTIANITY. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE     COMMONWEALTH. 

"  Certes  a  shadowe  hath  likenesse  of  the  thing  of  which  it  is 
shadowed,  but  shadowe  is  not  the  same  thing  of  which  it  is 
shadowed. ' ' — CHAUCER. 

"  That  at  the  least  the  shadow  of  Peter  passing  by  night  over- 
shadow some  of  them." — Acts  of  the  Apostles. 

The  church  is  a  community  in  order  to  spiritual 
ends,  for  the  development  of  the  spiritual  life  in 
men  ; ,  but  there  is  another  community  indispensable 
to  the  well-being  of  the  natural  life  of  men,  the 
State.  The  conditions  of  this  well-being  are  just 
relations — relations  directed  and  controlled  by  the 
law  of  justice — of  all  the  members  of  the  communi- 
ty, that  is,  of  all  the  citizens  of  the  State  to  each 
other;  and  relations  of  justice,  and  safety  of  the 
whole  Nation,  towards  all  other  Nations.  Whatever 
may  be  the  form  of  government  it  is  plain  that  the 
ends  of  the  existence  of  the  State  as  a  State  imply 
that  the  laws,  by  whomsoever  enacted,  must  be  IN 
ORDER  TO  JUSTICE.  Laws  therefore  cannot  originate 
in  the  will  and  good  pleasure  of  the  legislators,  be- 
cause they  existed  before  the  State,  ready  to  demand 


16  THE     COMMONWEALTH. 

obedience  whenever  and  wherever  men  come  into 
civil  and  political  relations  to  each  other,  just  as  the 
laws  of  chemistry  are  always  ready  to  act  even  in 
combinations  which  never  before  happened.  But  the 
emblem  of  justice  is  the  balance,  and  justice  is  equal 
justice,  so  that  the  laws  should  give,  not  equal  well- 
being,  but  equal  opportunities  of  earthly  well-being 
to  all  the  citizens  of  the  State,  equal  rights,  p?ivi- 
leges,  and  immunities,  in  order  that  each  citizen  in 
proportion  to  his  industry  in  ihQJust  use  of  the  fa- 
culties which  God  has  given  him,  and  of  the  oppor- 
tunities which  the  laws  give  him,  may  realize  the 
ends  for  which  he  is  a  citizen.  To  diminish  or  take 
wholly  away  the  good  of  one  for  the  sake  of  adding 
to  that  of  another  under  the  pretence  that  the  good 
of  the  whole  is  thereby  increased,  though  the  prin- 
ciple on  which  some  societies  are  based,  is  not  an  ar- 
rangement which  justice  ever  prescribes.  For  to 
make  a  man  a  mere  instrument  for  the  good  of  ano- 
ther, a  good  of  which  he  is  also  capable  and  of  which 
he  is  thereby  deprived,  is  not  simple  injustice,  but  is 
of  the  very  essence  of  crime,  a  crime  none  the  less 
for  its  being  legal ;  for  though  all  LAW,  that  is, 
God's  laws  are  of  divine  right,  the  DeviJ's  are  not  of 
divine  right.  This,  however,  does  not  anect  the 
duty  of  each  to  make  his  proportion  of  sacrifices  for 
the  common  welfare.  Justice  is  the  essential  princi- 
ple of  order,  and  of  organic  health  in  the  State.  If 
the  self-will  of  the  legislators  is  substituted  for  LAW, 
and  elements  of  injustice  are  admitted  among  the 
permanent  principles  of  the  government,  they  will 
show  themselves  sooner  or  later  as  a  leaven  of  dis- 
ease in  the  body  politic ;  and  however  they  may  have 
become  intertwined  and  incorporated  with  the  good , 


TUB     COMMONWEALTH.  17 

and  however  blind  conservatism — conservatism  of 
evil  is  always  blind — may  cry  out,  and  give  plau- 
sible reasons  for  their  preservation,  extirpation  is  the 
only  possible  remedy,  the  indispensable  condition  of 
attaining  the  true  ends,  and  even  of  preserving  the 
life  of  the  State. 

It  is  plain  that  the  Heal  State  would  be  where 
the  whole  people  should  be.  capable  of  recognizing, 
of  enacting  by  appropriate  organs,  and  of  willingly 
obeying  right  laws,  laws  just  to  all,  and  at  the  same 
time  favoring  wise  division,  and  wise  mutual  rela- 
tions of  employments,  as  also  just,  prudent,  and  safe 
relations  to  foreign  States.  But  an  ideal  State  is 
impossible.  For  a  just  State  cannot,  like  the  Church, 
select  for  its  citizens  exclusively  such  persons  as  have 
the  right  moral  relation  to  the  laws,  but  must  in- 
clude all  born  within  its  territory,  and  it  would  be 
quite  too  much,  considering  the  natural  gravitation 
of  men  towards  wrong,  to  expect  every  one  to  be 
willingly  obedient  to  the  right.  Yet  every  citizen 
is  bound  to  obey  the  laws.  This  is  the  condition  of 
the  well-being  the  State  aims  at,  not  only  for  him 
but  for  all  others.  A  community  of  benefits  and 
duties  is  what  constitutes  the  State  a  COMMON- 
WEALTH. It  is  the  communion  of  the  State.  At 
this  point  there  is  another  essential  difference  between 
the  church  and  the  State.  For  while  the  church  de- 
mands and  desires  only  free  spiritual  obedience  and 
can  therefore  never  use  any  form  of  coercion,  the 
State,  on  the  contrary,  demands  only  actual  obe- 
dience, without  regard  to  motives  ;  but  obedience  it 
insists  on  under  penalty,  and  may  justly  use  any  ne- 
cessary degree  of  compulsion  to  enforce  it.  But  al- 
though civil  justice  is  satisfied  when  the  laws  arc 


18  THE     COMMONWEALTH. 

actually  obeyed  if  even  under  fear,  or  infliction,  of 
penalty,  yet  the  State  must  ever  rejoice  in  loyalty 
and  free  obedience  since  so  only  can  its  ends  be  fully 
realized.  For  it  is  obvious  that  in  proportion  as  co- 
ercion is  required,  or  the  power  necessary  to  enforce 
obedience  must  be  maintained,  not  only  will  the  ex- 
penses of  government,  and  so  the  burden  of  taxes  be 
increased,  but  the  aims  of  the  law  will  be  often 
thwarted,  or  at  best  the  results  will  be  very  imper- 
fect in  comparison  with  those  of  willing  and  ready 
obedience. 

It  is  plain  that  in  proportion  as  the  citizens  of 
a  State  hold  the  relation  of  intelligent  and  free  obe- 
dience to  just  and  equal  laws,  such  a  State  is  a  free 
State.  If  moreover  the  proportion  of  citizens  hold- 
ing or  ready  to  hold  this  relation  to  such  laws  is 
sufficiently  large,  the  State  is,  or  is  capable  of  be- 
coming a  Democracy,  or  what  can  be  the  only  form 
of  a  Democracy  in  a  large  State,  a  representative 
Republic.  For  the  central  and  essential  condition 
of  a  true  Democracy  is  present,  that  is,  the  power  of 
self-government  in  the  sense  that,  in  regard  to  the 
great  body  of  citizens,  each  is  capable  of  governing 
himself,  not  by  making  his  own  will  the  law,  but  by 
making  the  law  the  measure  of  his  will.  Such  a 
people  is  also  capable  of  asserting  its  entire  freedom, 
and  right  of  self-government,  whether  against  an 
equal  power  from  without, — if  it  be  colonial  or  pro- 
vincial— or  from  within,  if  it  is  under  any  form  or 
degree  of  aristocracy.  It  is  an  adult  community  and 
has  no  longer  need  to  be  under  tutors  and  governors. 
It  will  also  desire  and  constantly  aim  at  self-govern- 
ment because  it  ought  not  to  be  under  any  other. — 
It  is  the  right  of  such  a  people  to  be  free,  since,  the 


THE     COMMONWEALTH.  19 

conditions  of  the  proper  use  of  freedom  being  pre- 
sent, so,  demonstrably,  can  the  true  ends  of  govern- 
ment be  best  realized ;  for  it  is  plain  that  no  earthly 
power  without  or  above  them  could  understand  and 
provide  for  their  proper  interests  as  a  community  as 
well  as  they  themselves.  Just  as  the  individual,  in 
proportion  to  his  intelligence,  resents  the  interference 
of  others  to  direct  him  in  his  business  as  absurd  as 
well  as  impertinent  so  an  intelligent  people  are  the 
best  judges  and  managers  of  their  own  affairs.  It  is, 
moreover,  the  duty  of  such  a  people  to  be  free,  since 
any  power  over  them  might,  at  any  time,  and  indeed 
would  at  all  times, — as  such  governments  always 
have  done — more  or  less,  interfere  to  forbid  that 
which  they  ought  to  do,  or  to  require  that  which 
they  ought  not  to  do ;  and  to  prevent  directly  or  in- 
directly, at  least  for  some  of  the  people,  the  attain- 
ment, and  the  opportunity  of  attainment,  of  some  or 
all  of  the  ends  at  which  all  men  and  all  States  are 
bound  to  aim.  These  results  are  plainly  inseparable 
from  the  very  nature  of  the  relation  of  the  governors 
to  the  governed,  unless  the  governors  were  angels 
and  not  men.  And  history  gives  no  encouragement 
to  expect  celestial  rulers,  for  "Hero  worship"  has 
proved  little  other  than  Devil  worship.  The  highest 
rights  of  a  people  or  of  a  State  are  also  its  highest 
duties. 

But,  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  character  of 
the  people  is  an  indispensable  condition  of  the  acqui- 
sition and  permanent  possession  of  freedom,  self-gov- 
ernment, and  equal  laws.  For  though  an  oppressed 
people,  however  intellectually  or  morally  degraded, 
may  in  blind  rage  and  fury  rise  upon,  and  crush 
their  oppressors,  and  proclaim  themselves  free,  yet 


20  THE     COMMONWEALTH. 

by  the  very  law  of  social  gravity  they  will  fall  again 
shortly  under  the  same  or  some  other  form  of  despot- 
ism. Tn  order  to  the  successful  assertion  and  main- 
tenance of  freedom  it  is  evident  not  only  that  the 
physical  force  of  the  people  must  be  superior  to  that 
of  the  aristocracy,  but  also  that  there  must  be  in- 
telligence enough  to  combine  and  wield  that  force 
efficiently.  It  is,  moreover,  evident  that  in  order  to 
successful  self-government  there  must  be  in  the 
people  an  intelligence  capable  of  recognizing  and 
enacting  the  laws  of  justice  as  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  the  government.  The  true  ends  of  a  State 
must  be  not  only  apprehended,  but  comprehended 
in  all  its  legislation.  For  only  the  laws  of  order  in- 
sure permanence,  and  justice  is  the  only  order.  In- 
justice is  always  essentially  chaotic  and  disorganiz- 
ing. The  common  well-being  must  be  ever  kept  in 
sight,  and  the  laws  must  constitute  the  State  a  COM- 
MONWEALTH. 

Besides  the  intelligence  necessary  to  a  successful 
Democracy,  there  must  be,  it  is  obvious,  such  a  mo- 
ral relation  to  the  laws  that  there  shall  be  paid  to 
them  free,  voluntary  obedience ;  for  self-government 
by  coercion  is  a  contradiction.  This,  however,  is  not 
to  be  hoped  for  from  every  citizen,  nor  is  it  necessary. 
But  there  must  be  an  efficient  majority  ready  both 
to  obey  the  laws,  and  to  insist  on  and  enforce  obe- 
dience to  them.  This  moral  relation  to  the  laws,  at 
least  in  a  large  proportion  of  those  who  hold  it,  must 
be  more  than  a  mere  calculation  of  self-interest,  for 
this  may  often  seem  to  be  wanting.  There  must 
therefore  be  a  true  feeling  of  the  obligations  of  Duty, 
for  it  is  certain  that  the  bare  knowledge  of  the  right 
is  not  sufficient  to  indu^e  men  to  obey  it.  This  cha- 


THE     COMMONWEALTH.  21 

racteristic  of  the  self-governing  citizen  is  in  some  re- 
spects much  more  important  than  that  of  intelli- 
gence. For  it  cannot  but  happen,  considering  men's 
present  intellectual  and  moral  imperfection,  that  the 
consequences  of  some  false  elementary  principles  in 
the  State  will  appear  in  the  form  of  more  or  less 
practical  wrong  and  organic  derangement,  in  which 
case  duty  will  always  be  found  more  ready  to  recog- 
nize the  evil,  and  much  less  conservative  of  it  under 
the  persuasions  of  self-interest,  than  any  mere  know- 
ledge of  the  wrong,  however  perfect  it  may  be,  or 
might  be.  In  fact,  evils  which  pay  well  and  involve 
the  interest  of  many  parties  never  disappear  simply 
because  their  existence  is  acknowledged,  but  yield 
only  to  vigorous  and  repeated  attacks  of  duty,  duty 
which  bows  to  the  supreme  authority  of  right,  and 
is  for  the  State  the  only  reliable  principle  of  true 
progress,  since  knowledge  in  the  hands  of  self-inter- 
est and  present  convenience  is  fond  of  compromises 
and  the  application  of  expediency  even  to  organic 
laws  ;  a  deadly  conservatism  !  for  expediency  and 
a  choice  of  methods  belong  only  to  the  way  in  which 
the  fundamental  laws  are  to  be  carried  out,  to  rules 
and  statutes  derived  from  these  laws,  but  have  no 

?lace  in  regard  to  the  fundamental  laws  themselves, 
n  the  ten  thousand  varying  relations  of  material  in- 
terests there  is  ample  room  for  the  exercise  of  judg- 
ment and  intelligent  discretion  in  order  to  determine 
the  best  methods  of  realizing  the  great  ends  of  the 
State,  but  in  regard  to  these  ends  themselves  there  is 
no  room  for  discretion.  Mere  intelligence  could  never 
discover  these,  neither  can  it  preserve  them. 

It  is  undeniable  that  the  greater  the  number  of 
truly  Christian  men  among  the  citizens  of  the  State 


22  THE     COMMONWEALTH. 

the  larger  will  be  the  infusion  in  it  of  the  essential 
element  of  Duty.  For  the  relation  of  these  men  to 
truth  and  right,  that  is,  to  LAW,  is  always  that  of 
free  obedience.  They  are,  therefore,  capable  of  true 
self-government,  and  are  the  most  valuable  consti- 
tuents of  the  State.  Because  a  self-governing  Dem- 
ocracy is  not  an  aggregation  of  individuals  every  one 
of  whom  is  a  law  to  himself  and  a  different  law  from 
that  of  his  neighbor,  as  aristocrats  pretend  to  believe, 
but  a  community,  as  a  whole,  obedient,  and  exacting 
obedience  to  the  law  of  the  common  good.  Truly 
Christian  men  are  also  sensitive  of  wrong,  and  in  pro- 
portion to  their  numbers  tend  to  eliminate  it  from 
all  laws,  relations  and  customs.  But  besides  the 
more  direct  effects  of  Christianity  by  means  of  those 
in  whom  its  own  highest  ends  are  being  realized,  its 
incidental  influences,  where  it  is  truly  taught,  are 
very  great,  even  over  those  who  deny  the  authority 
of  the  power  that  more  or  less  constantly  guides  and 
restrains  them.  It  is,  according  to  the  promise  of  its 
Author,  both  light  and  salt,  and  pervading  like  the 
atmosphere,  and  everywhere  diffused  through  the 
community,  an  ever  present  overshadowing  influence 
incessantly  demanding  in  the  deepest  consciousness 
of  men  and  so  tending,  however  slowly,  to  produce, 
in  all  human  relations,  conformity  to  its  principles. 
It  awakens  a  true  reverence  for  man  as  man,  and  a 
deeper  sense  of  duty  both  to  God  and  to  men  than 
ever  existed  without  it.  It  demands,  therefore,  worthy 
aims  and  forms  of  well-being  for  man,  and  for  all 
men,  both  for  body  and  mind.  It  represents  that 
which  is  common  to  all  men  as  so  infinitely  greater 
than  that  in  which  they  differ,  that  the  differences 
disappear,  and  in  the  presence  of  Christianity  "  all 


THE     COMMONWEALTH.  23 

men  are  equal."  Hence  it  claims  for  all  men — and 
makes  its  claims  felt  in  a  Christian  community  how- 
ever they  may  be  resisted — rights,  privileges,  op- 
portunities and  conditions  of  well-being  befitting 
creatures  made  in  the  image  of  God  and  capa- 
ble of  being  restored  to  it.  Under  such  influences 
the  common  intellect  is  stimulated,  demands  and  re- 
ceives education,  the  common  conscience  is  quickened, 
and  that  moral  sense  of  duty  and  responsibility  which 
has  its  roots  in  Christian  teaching  becomes  the  most 
reliable  of  all  the  conditions  of  free  self-governing 
obedience  to  the  laws  of  the  State. 

A  community  so  interpenetrated  by  the  light  and 
salt  of  Christianity  that  it  is  capable  of  organizing  it- 
self into  a  State  for  the  true  ends  of  a  State ;  of 
evolving  its  own  legislative  organs  competent  and 
willing  to  enact  just  and  equal  laws  for  all,  laws 
which  can  never  conflict  with  the  "  Higher  Law," 
because  they  are  one  with  it ;  ready  by  an  efficient 
majority  to  render  willing  obedience  to  such  laws, 
and  at  all  times  to  uphold  their  executive  organs  in 
enforcing  obedience  to  them  ;  desiring  only  just  and 
honorable  foreign  relations  ;  providing  the  conditions 
of  Earthly  well-being  for  MEN,  that  is,  for  intellec- 
tual as  well  as  material  wants ;  protecting  its  central 
life,  its  self-governing  power,  by  providing  for  and 
requiring  universal  education,  and  a  wise  encourage- 
ment of  true  Christian  influences  ;  such  a  community 
is  THE  SHADOW  OF  CHRISTIANITY.  It  is  the  coun- 
terpart and  "  likcnesse"  of  the  true  Church,  though 
but  a  shadowy  and  far  off  likenesse,  for  "  shadowe 
is  not  the  same  thing  of  which  it  is  shadowed."  It 
is  also  a  true  though  imperfect  Democratic  State.  It 
is  a  true  Unity,  for  the  government  and  governed 


24  THE     COMMONWEALTH. 

are  one.  It  is  a  true  COMMONWEALTH,  for  the  good 
it  realizes  is  offered  equally  to  all. 

Such  a  self-organizing,  self-governing  and  free 
State,  though  it  may  still  contain  much  unassimilat- 
ed  and  crude  material,  is  yet,  if  faithful  to  itself,  a 
true,  self-realizing  idea,  tending  always  towards,  but 
never  attaining  to  complete  realization  of  itself  until 
the  promise  of  God  is  fulfilled  that  His  Laws  shall 
be  written  on  the  heart  of  all  men. 

A  community,  however,  somewhat  less  qualified 
than  that  just  described  may  prove  to  be  a  true  and 
successful  Democracy  if  only  the  true  moral  element 
in  the  character  of  its  people  is  present.  It  may 
contain  much  unfit  material,  its  statutes  or  customs 
may  not  preserve  the  just  balance  of  interests,  and 
even  some  of  its  organic  laws  may  be  the  latent  seeds 
of  corruption  and  disorder.  But  a  Democracy  is  by 
the  very  nature  of  its  organization  self -educating. 
It  is  constantly  under  the  teaching  of  its  own  expe- 
rience. It  soon  finds  that  part  of  its  population  which 
is  ignorant  or  vicious  an  annoyance,  an  impediment 
and  an  instrument  of  evil  in  the  hands  of  evil  men. 
It  will  therefore  seek  -to  diminish  this  incompatible 
element  by  providing  instruction  for  all  its  citizens. 
It  will  use  all  efficient  influences  to  remove  both  the 
ignorance  and  the  vice.  Here  is  its  first  danger, 
that  through  lack  of  watchfulness  it  will  permit  the 
crude  and  the  false  materials  within  it  to  increase ; 
viz.,  blind  but  strong  ignorance  at  one  extreme,  and 
unprincipled  intellect  at  the  other ;  for  these  are  the 
constituents  of  despotism.  The  State  will  escape  this 
danger,  however,  so  long  as  the  great  central  body 
of  the  people  are  fit  constituents  of  it. 

The  equilibrium  of  employments  and  interests  will 


THE     COMMONWEALTH.  25 

commonly  maintain  itself  without  serious  collisions, 
except  that  the  seductions  of  foreign  commerce,  liable 
to  interfere  with  true  independence  by  preventing 
development  and  production  of  what  may  at  any 
time  become  indispensable  to  the  safety  of  the  State  ; 
and  the  stimulus  of  foreign  but  uncertain  markets 
liable  to  produce  excess  and  so  derangement  of  ma- 
nufactures, must  be  carefully  guarded  against.  For 
danger  or  great  inconvenience  and  injury  are  more 
likely  to  arise  from  foreign  commercial  than  politi- 
cal relations. 

But  the  severest  trial  of  the  Democracy  will  be 
where  some  false  principles  have  failed  to  be  exclud- 
ed, or  some  true  ones  have  failed  to  be  inserted,  in 
the  enactment  of  fundamental  laws.  For  the  natural, 
and  ultimately  the  inevitable  consequence  will  be  the 
existence  of  wide  spread  and  deeply  interwoven  self- 
interests  inconsistent  with  the  common  interest,  in- 
consistent with  justice,  and  so  with  order  and  per- 
manent harmony.  There  will  be,  ultimately,  not  a 
mere  diversity  but  an  antagonism  of  interests  which 
cannot  fail  to  come  into  collision.  But  the  assertion 
of  ancient,  legal,  or  customary,  but  unjust  claims  in 
which  many  have  come  to  have  an  interest  backed 
with  wealth  accumulated  by  the  injustice,  this  con- 
test against  the  right  is,  of  all  possible  influences  in 
a  community,  the  most  demoralizing.  Nothing  but 
the  sternest  and  most  self-denying  patriotism  and 
loyalty  to  right  will  be  found  sufficient  to  resist  and 
to  remove  the  evil,  and  eradicate  the  causes  of  it. 

Thus  a  particular  democratic   experiment  may 

fail  through  misorganization  in  the  beginning,  or  lack 

of  moral  element  in  the  end.     But  DEMOCRACY  has 

not  thereby  failed.  If  in  any  case,  through  ignorance 

3  . 


THE     COMMONWEALTH 


or  moral  imperfection  the  causes  of  disease  were  not 
avoided,  or  the  self-recuperative  power  proved  insuf- 
ficient, the  next  Democracy  will  have  the  benefit  of 
the  experience  of  its  predecessor. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE   NATURAL  STATE.      THE   DUALITY. 

"  Now  this  in  thenature  of  it  is  nothing  but  aliud  extraaliudt 
and  therefore  perfect  alterity  and  disunity." 

"  They  judge  of  things  according  to  their  own  private  appe- 
tites, and  selfish  passions,  and  not  with  a  free  uncaptivated  uni- 
versality of  mind,  and  an  impartial  regard  to  the  good  of  the 
whole.  '* 

The  true,  permanently  successful  Democracy,  the 
Unity  of  government  and  governed,  the  truly  self- 
governing,  self-realizing  State,  the  true  Common- 
wealth, can  exist  only  as  an  incident  of  Christianity, 
only  when  profoundly  penetrated  with  both  the  lignt 
and  the  salt  of  Christianity. 

The  natural  relation  of  barbarian  men  to  each 
other  is  like  that  of  animals — the  strong  dominate 
over  the  weak.  This  they  do,  not  primarily  from 
the  mere  love  of  domination,  as  animals  do  not,  but 
in  order  to  some  material  benefit  to  themselves. — 
They  covet  something  in  possession  of  the  weaker 
which  their  superior  strength  enables  them  to  de- 
prive him  of.  The  moving  power  here  is  the  pur- 
pose of  having  without  personal  obedience  to  the  na- 
tural laws  of  acquisition.  It  is  more  agreeable  to 


THE      PAGAN      STATE. 

make  others  their  instruments  to  this  end.  Although 
an  obscure  instinct  of  justice  sometimes  appears  in 
such  relations,  it  exercises  no  restraint,  might  is 
practically  acknowledged  to  give  right,  successful 
robbery  and  piracy  are  reckoned  honorable,  and  the 
plunderer  is  held  in  much  higher  estimation  than  the 
plundered.  The  social  instincts  and  affections  have 
no  control  over  this  natural  combination  of  laziness 
and  acquisitiveness  when  in  possession  of  superior 
strength,  hence  the  women  of  barbarians  are  the  me- 
nials, the  labor-saving  tools  of  the  men.  This  very 
important  method  of  acquisition  is  applied  not  only 
to  the  women  but  to  the  weak  and  dependent  men  of 
the  barbarian  tribe,  at  least  in  those  above  the  hun- 
ter stage.  Thus  there  are  two  sources  of  material 
possessions  for  the  strong — to  plunder  from  those 
who  have  anything  to  be  deprived  of,  and  to  coerce 
the  muscles  of  those  who  have  not.  But  in  every 
stage  of  society  advanced  beyond  the  merest  chaotic 
elements  this  greater  strength  will  be  found  to  rest 
on  superior  intelligence — not  the  wise  intelligence 
which  aims  rationally  at  right  ends,  but  that  more 
developed  animal  craft  which  seeks  successfully  the 
ends  which  instinct  prescribes.  This  intelligent 
strength  combined  with  the  wealth  it  has  accumu- 
lated is  Power.  Whoever  investigates  carefully  the 
necessary  conditions  of  the  accumulation  of  material 
wealth,  that  is,  of  available  wealth  in  forms  adapted 
to  immediate  use,  and  considers  its  relations  to  hu- 
man muscular  labor,  and  the  fact  that  the  muscular 
labor  of  the  individual  can  produce  very  little  more 
than  enough  to  supply  his  own  necessities,  will  find 
that  the  human  instruments  of  large  accumulations 
of  wealth  must  be  greatly  more  numerous  than  the 


THE     PAGAN     STATE.  29 

possessors.  It  will  appear  that  poverty  is  the  na- 
tural correlative  of  wealth,  the  indispensable  condi- 
tion of  it.  The  power,  therefore,  or  might  of  the 
barbarian  or  semi-barbarian  into  which  wealth  enters 
as  so  large  an  element  is  derived  from  the  many  who 
are  both  the  source  and  the  subjects  of  it. 

Here,  then,  we  have  the  elements,  and  the  natural 
origin  of  aristocratic  power.  We  may  say  its  neces- 
sary origin,  since,  the  causes  and  conditions  being 
given,  the  result  could  be  nothing  else.  According- 
ly we  find  that  the  earliest  stationary  societies  of 
men  uniformly  consist  of  chieftains  surrounded  by  a 
few  armed  retainers,  and  many  slaves,  or  laborers 
equally  dependent,  because  the  chiefs  have  monopo- 
lized the  sources  of  food  and  raiment,  and  can  take 
such  proportion  of  the  products  of  their  labor  as  they 
choose.  Here  too  we  have  the  origin  of  a  natural 
and  necessary  DUALITY,  for  there  is  an  evolution  of 
the  society  into  two  parties  whose  interests  are  an- 
tagonistic to  each  other. 

If  we  suppose  one  of  these  chieftains  to  conquer, 
or  to  make  tributary  to  him  several  others,  to  as- 
sume supremacy  under  the  name  of  King  and  so  to 
constitute  a  Nation,  which  has  been  commonly  the 
next  step,  all  the  relations  of  the  parts  will  remain 
essentially  the  same,  except  that  the  higher  the  su- 
perstructure the  heavier  the  weight  which  rests  upon 
the  foundation. 

With  such  estimation  of  humanity,  such  self-esti- 
mation as  men  have,  and  with  such  practical  sense  of 
justice  as  exists  in  the  absence  of  Christianity  this  re- 
lation of  the  extremes  of  society  would  seem  to  ber 
necessarily,  a  permanent  one.  There  is  nowhere  any 
tendency  to  its  termination.  For  either  the  lower 


30  THE     PAG  AN     STATE. 

extreme  must  spontaneously  elevate  itself  by  acquir- 
ing so  much  intelligence  as  will  enable  it  to  combine 
and  wield  its  physical  force  successfully  against  the 
aristocracy,  and  to  constitute  itself  a  society  which 
would  not  again  fall  into  the  same  relations  ;  or  else 
the  governing  class  must,  of  mere  philanthropy,  be- 
stow upon  it  rights  and  privileges  which  would  de- 
prive themselves  of  the  most  cherished  of  their  own. 
But  the  lowest  stratum  in  a  pagan  State,  for  the 
most  part  field  laborers,  workers  in  mines, manufactur- 
ing operatives,  are  hardly  one  remove  from  the 
brutes,  most  like  caged  animals,  themselves  in  fact 
often  chained  together,  chained  to  their  employment, 
made  to  serve  the  purpose  of  water  power  in  the 
tread-mill,  or  sailors  chained  to  the  oar.  Sunk  in 
the  most  hopeless  mental  and  moral  apathy,  with  no 
conscious  worth,  or  consciousness  of  rights  as  men, 
they  can  only  sometimes  break  forth  with  a  sort  of 
animal  rage  and  blind  fury  against  their  keepers  and 
oppressors,  destructive  enough,  it  may  be,  for  a  time, 
but  without  any  ultimate  aim,  or  any  ultimate  result 
for  their  benefit.  If  they  could  succeed  in  wholly 
extirpating  the  antagonist  aristocracy,  they  would, 
again,  after  a  longer  or  shorter  period  of  anarchy, 
fall  into  the  same  natural  and  necessary  duality. 

It  is  plain,  therefore,  that,  if  this  duality  is  to  ter- 
minate, it  must  be  by  influences  from  above  and  not 
from  below,  from  the  governing  and  not  from  the 
subject  class.  But  to  the  governing  class  the  relation 
is  every  way  advantageous.  It  furnishes  for  them 
wealth  and  power,  the  means  of  ease,  pride,  luxury, 
distinction,  glory,  possessions  which  most  men  gladly 
acquire,  but  few  willingly  deprive  themselves  of.— 
There  are  but  two  motives  supposable  which  could 


THE     PAGAN     STATE.  31 

induce  the  upper  class  to  share  either  their  wealth  or 
their  power  with  the  producers  of  them  so  as  to  make 
the  State  in  any  sense  a  Corawio/i-wealth. 

I.  Fear  might  do  it.     But  this  implies  an  intelli- 
gent, more  and  more  imperative  demand  from  below 
backed  by  the  show  of  an  organizable  force  superior ' 
to  their  own — conditions  which  it  has  been  shown 
can  never  exist  in  the  case  supposed. 

II.  A  profound  sense  of  justice,  a  true  estimate  of 
the  worth  of  man  as  man,  a  strong  practical  convic- 
tion that  the  power  imposes  the  obligation  to  furnish 
for  men  the  conditions  of  well-being  and  self-realiza- 
tion according  to  the  design   of  the  Creator — this 
state  of  mind  in  a  pngan  aristocracy  would  in  due 
time  transform  the  duality   into  a  Community.     To 
one  in  the  least  acquainted   with  the  uniform  moral 
character  and  spirit  of  heathen  power  could  anything 
be  imagined   more  ridiculous  than  such  a  supposi- 
tion?    The  highest  moral  attainment  even  of  the 
philosophers  is  expressed  in  the  confession  "  video 
meliora  proboque,  deteriora  sequor"  (I  see  and  ap- 
prove the  right,  and  practice  the  wrong.)  They  ack- 
nowledge  that   the   temptations  to  abuse  power  and 
"Wealth  are  stronger  than  human  nature  can  resist — 
an  opinion  which  the  conduct  of  heathen  possessors 
of  them   have   always  most  effectually  confirmed. 
What  hope  could  there  be  of  political  justice  where 
the  private  and  social  morality  of  the  highest  ranks 
and  of  all  ranks  was  such  as  no  Christian  ears  can 
tolerate  the  description  of,  such  that  the  existence  of 
it  would  be  incredible  were  it  not  everywhere  allud- 
ed to  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  without  disapproval, 
in  pagan   literature.     It  is  certain,    then,    that  no 
moral  causes  could  change  the  relation  of  the  gov- 


32  THE     PAGAN     STATE. 

eminent  to  the  governed,  neither  consciousness  of 
rights  from  below,  nor  conscious  obligation  from 
above. 

But  a  high  degree  of  intellectual  development, 
and  of  aesthetic  cultivation  may  exist  without  Chris- 
tianity. May  not  these  gradually  pervade  all  classes, 
and  by  producing  intellectual  community  diminish 
and  finally  destroy  political  inequality  ?  There  is  no 
tendency  towards  such  intellectual  community.  For, 
on  the  one  hand,  the  intellect  of  ignorant  men  does 
not  move  spontaneously  except  under  circumstances 
of  physical  comfort  and  hope,  and  in  the  absence  of 
other  compulsory  or  necessary  exhausting  activities. 
Under  the  depression  of  excessive  muscular  labor, 
and  hopeless  deprivations,  nothing  but  strong  moral 
impulses  can  excite  it  to  activity.  But  here  the  ig- 
norance is  more  profound  than  can  be  conceived  by 
a  Christian  mind,  the  oppression  of  the  physical  powers 
the  most  grinding,  and  the  absence  of  moral  stimulus 
total.  It  is  true  that  the  practice  of  enslaving  pri- 
soners of  war  in  ancient  times  brought  some  intelli- 
gent and  educated  men  into  the  subject  class.  But 
these  immediately  became  valuable  house-servants, 
had  no  connection  with,  and  did  not  at  all  affect  the 
character  of  the  great  mass  of  productive  laborers. — 
There  cannot,  therefore,  be  for  the  lower  class  any 
intellectual  se//-elevation  and  approach  towards 
equality  with  the  higher ;  for  the  indispensable  con- 
dition of  this  is  the  previous  absence  of  the  very  re- 
lation which  the  intellectual  development  is  supposed 
capable  of  removing. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  can  be  none  but  moral 
motives  which  should  induce  the  upper  class  to  ex- 
tend their  own  cultivation  downwards,  and  these  have 


THE     PAGAN     STATE.  33 

been  shown  not  to  exist.  If  there  were  any  danger 
of  a  natural  gravitation  of  intelligence,  their  most 
important  interests,  as  well  as  vanity  and  pride  of 
caste  would  urge  them  to  prevent  it,  for  there  is  al- 
ways, in  dual  States,  a  most  sensitive  distinction  be- 
tween things  liberal  and  things  servile,  or,  where 
legal  slavery  is  wanting,  between  things  noble  and 
things  base  and  mechanical.  But  learning  and  the 
arts  are  everywere  liberal.  There  was,  however, 
no  necessity  for  ancient  aristocracies  to  forbid  the 
descent  of  liberal  acquirements  as  there  is  in  some 
Christian  States.  There  was  never  any  danger  felt 
that  the  servile  class  would  for  themselves  take  to 
learning ;  they  were  hardly  thought  capable  of  being 
taught.  That  such  danger  would  have  been  care- 
fully guarded  against  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  such 
concert  as  the  most  animal-like  savages  are  capable  of 
often  caused  great  trouble  and  destruction,  insomuch 
that  it  was  advised  to  place  slaves  of  different  lan- 
guages together  in  order  to  increase  the  difficulty  of 
their  combination.  There  would  seem,  therefore,  to 
be  no  possible  way  in  which  the  requisite  common 
intelligence,  supposed  sufficient  to  terminate  the  dual 
relation,  could  be  realized. 

But  did  not  both  the  Greek  and  Roman  people 
acquire  intelligence  sufficient  to  enable  them  to  com- 
bine successfully  against  their  kings  and  tyrants,  and 
assert  their  own  freedom  and  self-government  ?  The 
Greek  and  Roman  PEOPLE  belonged  to  the  aristo- 
cratic side  of  the  Duality.  They  were  the  armed  re- 
tainers, and  free  companions  of  the  original  chief- 
tains, the  instrument  of  their  power.  They  were 
few  in  comparison  with  the  great  subject  mass  of 
servi,  coloni,  oikefce,  penestce,  helotce,  and  other 


34  THE     PAG  AN     STATE. 

producing  and  servile  classes  under  whatever  names. 
Their  success  was  but  the  success  of  a  band  of  rob- 
bers quarreling  as  usual  over  the  division  of  their 
common  plunder.  They  were  not  at  all  less  disposed 
to  the  abuse  of  power  than  the  more  condensed  form 
of  aristocracy.    Indeed  those  who  had  the  best  means 
of  estimating  the  characters  of  the  two,  that  is,  by 
experience  of  them,  represent  the  "TYRANNY"  as 
a  beast  with  one  head,  and  the  "  DEMOCRACY"  as  a 
many  headed   and  much  more  dreadful  beast  than 
the  other.     There  was  here  no  approach  to  the  idea 
of  a  Community,  a  Commonwealth,  an  organism  in 
which  all  should  partake  of  a  common  life,  and  of  a 
common  nourishment   and    well-being.     Even  the 
philosophers,  who  in  their  (Jespair  of  existing  govern- 
ments indulged  in  day-dreams  of  ideal  States,  never 
conceived  of  a  political  UNITY.     Their  highest  Ideal 
was  a  small  superstructure  of  more  or  less  democratic 
aristocracy  resting  upon  a  wide  foundation  of  menial 
and  subject  classes.     So  total  was  the  ignorance  and 
the  depravity  of  the  many,  and  so  profound  was  the 
ignorance  of  the  few  in  regard  to  the  true  estimate  of 
MAN,  that  they  would  no  sooner  have  thought  of  ad- 
mitting  men,    as   such,    than   animals,  to  political 
rights.     To  prepare  them  for  such  admission  would, 
from  their  point  of  view,  have  been  as  absurd  as  for 
the  farmer  to  make  his  horses  judges  of  the  amount 
of  labor  they  should   perform  for  him.     Notwith- 
standing the  words  virtue,  justice,  right,  were  often 
in  their  mouths,  so  deep  was  the  often  unconscious 
conviction  that  right  is  based  upon  power,  so  total  in 
them  the  principle  of  seZ/'-interest,  that  they  felt  no 
more  hesitation  and  no  more  compunction  in  making 
MEN  mere  instruments  to  their  ends,  than  in  using 


THE     PAGAN     STATE.  35 

any  other  tools  within  their  reach  and  adapted  to 
their  purpose. 

But  would  not  a  greater  amount  of  intelligence, 
a  scientific  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  Nature  and  of 
true  political  economy,  such  as  we  possess,  and  per- 
haps a  little  more,  have  enabled  them  to  see  that 
"self-love  and  social  are  the  same"  ;  and  to  be  con- 
vinced that  their  true  self-interest  required  them  to 
share  the  good  that  the  State  can  be  made  to  pro- 
cure with  all  its  people  ?     If  this  were  true  in  re- 
gard to  earthly  well-being   considered  exclusively, 
and  by  itself,  which  it  is  not,  then  a  community  of 
men  of  pure  intellect,  and  perfectly  developed  by  a 
knowledge  of  all  the  laws  of  their  relations  to  nature 
and  to  each  other,  but  passionless,  so  as  never  to 
desire  other  than  their  true  earthly  good — such  a 
community  might  operate  like  a  community  of  ani- 
mals governed  by  instinct,  or,  so  far  as  the  result  is 
concerned,   like  a  manufacturing  machine  in  which 
all  the  parts  are  in  order  and  exactly  adapted  to  the 
required  end.     But  if  we  consider,  for  example,  the 
origin  of  material  wealth,  and  the  uses  which  make 
its  possession  desirable  for  a  being  of  combined  intel- 
lect and  passion,  would  it  be  better  for  the  ^(/"-inte- 
rest of  every  man,  in  relation  to  this  world  alone, 
never  to  misappropriate  to  himself  what  justly  be- 
longs to  another  ?     Or,  if  it  were  so,  could  every 
man  be  practically  convinced  of  it  except  by  taking 
the  element  of  passion  and  pride  out  of  him  ?     Men, 
therefore,  such  as  men  are,  could  never,  by  any  de- 
gree of  mere  intellectual  knowledge  possible  to  be  ac- 
quired in  relation  to  their  earthly  self-interest  form 
a  permanent  community.     For  it  would  be  for  the 
actual  and  true  earthly  self-interest  of  some  to  be 


36  THE     PAGAN     STATE. 

rich  by  making  others  poor,  of  some  to  be  learned  by 
keeping  others  in  ignorance,  of  some  to  acquire  un- 
just power  and  to  use  it  unjustly,  and  so  of  other 
things.  Intelligent  mere  earthly  self-interest,  with 
the  necessary  inequality  of  intellect  among  actual 
men,  must  lead  inevitably  to  duality  and  not  to  uni- 
ty in  the  State.  But  in  regard  to  the  future  life  too 
little  is  known  in  the  absence  of  Christianity  to  per- 
mit the  existence  of  any  intelligent  self-interest  in 
relation  to  the  whole  of  human  existence;  or  of  any 
motives  derived  from  the  consideration  of  it  which 
should  practically  influence  men  in  regard  to  their 
character  and  conduct  in  this  life.  No  kind  or  de- 
gree, then,  of  mere  intellectual  development,  and  in- 
telligent self-interest  could  ever  have  transformed  the 
Athenian  Democracy,  or  any  other  pagan  duality  into 
a  true  self-governing,  self-realizing  COMMONWEALTH. 
But  there  is  still  another  method,  to  some  men 
perhaps  hopeful,  of  attempting  to  realize  the  true 
State.  Might  not  a  far  advance  in  physical  science, 
increasing  man's  control  over  the  powers  of  Nature, 
and  his  facilities  for  acquiring  material  wealth,  by 
giving  him  a  knowledge  of  law,  order  and  method, 
added  to  a  high  degree  of  aesthetic  cultivation,  a 
contemplation  and  admiration  of  beauty,  harmony 
and  fitness  in  Nature  and  Art — might  not  these  and 
other  such  like  influences  resulting  from  the  full  in- 
tellectual and  aesthetic  developement  of  men  awaken 
in  them  a  love  of  moral  beauty,  harmony  and  fit- 
ness, that  is,  of  righteousness  and  justice,  and  so  sti- 
mulate the  sense  of  duty  and  moral  obligation  which 
is  latent  in  all  men  that  moral  impulses  would  in- 
duce them  to  attempt  and  accomplish  what  no  con- 
siderations of  present  or  ultimate  self-interest  how- 


THIS     PAGAN     STATE.  37 

ever  enlightened  would  be  found  sufficient  for  ?  These 
influences  are  much  trusted  in  some  quarters,  by  many 
reckoned  superior  to  those  of  Christianity. 

As  to  the  effect  of  scientific  knowledge — there 
would  seem  to  be  no  necessary  connection  between 
the  knowledge  of  a  law  of  physical  Nature  and  a  dis- 
position to  be  just  in  one's  dealings  with  his  fellow- 
men.  They  are  apparently  things  different  in  kind 
without  sympathy  or  natural  relation.  Why  should 
the  merchant  whose  knowledge  of  astronomy,  sea 
currents,  and  mete  orology  enable  him  to  sail  all  seas 
with  greater  safety  and  more  speed  than  others  be 
less  crafty  and  over-reaching  in  his  contracts,  or  less 
fond  of  unfair  profits  than  they  ?  Is  the  man  who 
can  make  the  lightnings  his  messengers  in  negotiat- 
ing less  likely  to  be  of  grasping  and  gambling  char- 
acter than  he  who  does  his  business  by  the  mail- 
coach  ?  The  manufacturer  whose  control  of  the 
powers  of  nature  enables  him  to  perform  the  labor  of 
thousands  of  men — does  he  never  oppress  those  whom 
he  still  finds  it  necessary  to  employ  ?  And  so  in 
general  is  it  found  that  the  greater  the  knowledge 
and  efficient  control  of  Nature,  the  greater,  in  those 
who  possess  this  knowledge  and  power,  the  develop- 
ment of  moral  integrity  and  the  sense  of  justice? — 
Or,  rather,  does  not  this  knowledge  often  degenerate 
into  a  true  sacrilegious  MAGIC,  a  coercion  of  the 
powers  of  Nature,  which  are  of  themselves  spontane- 
ously obedient  to  the  will  of  God,  to  become  instru- 
ments of  unjust  and  wicked  purposes  ;  and  men,  like 
the  Titans  of  old,  turn  rebellious  against  Heaven  in- 
stead of  becoming  more  benevolent  to  men.  The 
greater  powers  available  for  the  production  of  wealth 
expand  in  the  same  proportion  with  the  desire  of  acquisi- 


38  THE     PAGAN      STATE. 

tion.  and  there  is  the  same  temptation  as  before  to 
unjust  gain,  to  seize  by  the  stronger  hand  or  stronger 
brain  the  product  of  the  labor  of  others. 

But  the  study  and  appreciation  of  the  ideal,  the 
fine  arts,  it  is  said,  are  civilizing,  humanizing,  refin- 
ing. What  may  be  the  amount  and  the  worth  of  the 
instruction  and  influence  to  be  derived  from  these 
arts  in  the  hands  of  those  whose  moral  character  is 
already  such  as  it  is  assumed  that  they  always  tend 
to  produce  is  not  here  the  question.  But  this,  what 
is  the  moral  power  of  such  ideals  as  are  the  produc- 
tion of  men  in  the  absence  of  Christianity,  and  the 
standard  of  whose  own  morality  is  the  heathen 
standard  ?  Would  the  exhibition  of  ideal  Strength 
naturally  increase  the  moral  strength  of  the  behold- 
er ?  or  would  it  simply  make  him  critical  in  regard 
to  the  "points"  of  a  prize-fighter,  and  awaken  the 
desire  to  see  an  exhibition  of  his  muscles.  Ideal 
manly  Beauty — would  it  stimulate  pagan  minds  to 
attempt  the  realization  of  a  moral  ideal  in  which 
there  should  be  left  no  blot  of  private  wrong,  or  pub- 
lic injustice  ?  Female  ideal  Beauty,  The  Venus — 
would  the  study  of  it  excite  such  deep  admiration  of 
immaculate  purity  that  men  would  be  ready,  almost, 
to  vow  eternal  virginity  ?  Could  Music  so  attune 
the  entire  man  to  harmony  that  henceforth  he  would 
tolerate  in  himself  no  moral  discord  ?  Doubtless 
these  arts  are  capable  of  giving  a  high  degree  of  en- 
joyment, pleasure,  both  innocent  and  depraved,  and 
what  use  was  made  of  them  anciently  for  the  latter 
purpose,  Pompei  bears  witness.  If  they  could  be 
restrained  to  their  better  purpose  they  would  furnish 
to  their  cultivators  elegant  enjoyment,  most  agree- 
able self-indulgence.  But  what  generic  connection 


THE      PAGAN     STATE.  39 

exists  between  this  or  any  other  self-indulgence  or 
elegant  pleasure,  and  the  self-denials  often  inele- 
gant, painful,  and  severe,  which  duty  never  hesitates 
to  prescribe  as  often  as  they  are  necessary  to  the 
ends  of  Right.  In  the  case  under  consideration,  the 
transformation  of  a  dual  State  into  a  Common- 
wealth, would  the  moral  influence  of  Esthetics  be 
sufficient  to  make  an  imperative  demand,  a  demand 
not  to  be  resisted,  that  the  possessors  of  the  wealth, 
power,  and  rank  in  the  State,  should  share  them  with 
their  inferiors,  and  deprive  themselves  forever  of  the 
means  of  re-acquiring  them  ?  An  influence  which 
should  make  proud,  luxurious  heathen  masters  will- 
ing to  submit  to  long  self-denials  in  order  to  instruct, 
elevate  and  fit  for  self-government  their  very  slaves, 
knowing  at  the  same  time  that  their  own  exclusive 
power  and  profit  must  as  a  consequence  cease? 
These  were  "  fine  arts"  indeed  !  !  magical,  miracu- 
lous !  Did  they,  in  Athens,  where  a  full  and  com- 
plete experiment  of  them  was  made,  produce  any 
such  effects  ?  A  sufficient  answer  may  be  found  in 
the  decrees — more  unjust  than  any  single  headed 
tyranny  could  conceive — of  the  Athenian  Assem- 
blies, every  member  of  which  could  pass  critical 
judgment  upon  the  last  work  of  Art,  or  rebuke  the 
rhetoric  of  Demosthenes.  Not  only  were  the  ancient 
fine  arts  powerless  for  moral  good,  but  such  as  they 
are  and  always  must  be  in  the  absence  of  Christiani- 
ty they  are  among  the  most  efficient  instruments  of 
moral  depravity. 

We  may  conclude,  therefore,  confidently,  that 
there  are  no  causes  in  existence  in  the  pagan  or  na- 
tural State,  moral,  gesthetical,  intellectual,  or  from 
the  combination  of  all  these,  which  could  ever  trans- 


40  THE      PAGAN      STATE. 

form  it  from  its  natural  and  necessary  duality  into  a 
truly  self-governing  Community. 

But,  further,  a  Community  consisting  exclusive- 
ly of  the  aristocratic  moiety,  without  the  servile 
basis  of  the  pagan  State,  and  of  the  best  aristocratic 
material  which  paganism  is  capable  of  producing,  to 
which  might  be  added  a  knowledge  of  modern  phy- 
sical science,  organized  after  any  ancient  actual  or 
ideal  model,  any  modern,  or  any  other  model,  would 
be  incapable  of  permanent  existence  as  a  self-govern- 
ing Community.  In  the  absence  of  the  servile  basis 
two  causes  of  disintegration  would  immediately  begin 
to  operate.  First — The  necessity  which  always  ex- 
ists in  a  dual  State,  of  close  union  among  all  the 
elements  of  the  aristocratic  class  in  order  to  self-de- 
fence against  danger  from  the  greatly  superior  phy- 
sical force  below  them,  would  be  taken  away.  The 
distinct  organic  powers  of  the  State,  whatever  their 
functions,  would  be  so  many  separate  organisms  each 
having  its  own  self-seeking  life.  And,  however 
skillfully  they  might  have  been  originally  balanced, 
in  the  absence  of  the  bond  of  fear  from  below,  and  of 
that  of  duty  from  above,  in  the  absence  of  a  common 
moral  life  such  as  Christianity  alone  can  give,  their 
equilibrium  could  not  be  preserved.  The  question 
must  first  be  solved,  to  which  no  pagan  people  could 
ever  find  an  answer,  c  l  quis  custodiet  ipsos  custo- 
des  ?"  Who  shall  watch  the  sentinels  ?  The  philo- 
sophers asserted  that  morality  must  be  the  guardian 
of  the  State,  but  acknowledged  at  the  same  time 
that  it  was  beyond  the  strength  of  men  under  the 
temptations  of  wealth  and  power  to  obey  its  laws. — 
Such  possessors  of  power,  surrounded  by  depraved 
men,  would  inevitably  find  means  to  retain  it  for 


THE     PAGAN     STATE.  41 

their  own  ends  instead  of  those  of  the  Community, 
and  the  larger  power  would  as  certainly  control  the 
smaller  as  the  heavier  weight  disturbs  the  equili- 
brium of  the  balance. 

But  another  and  still  greater  danger  to  the  Unity 
of  the  State  would  arise  from  the  absence  of  the  ser- 
vile class.  The  relations  of  all  the  citizens  to  the 
first  necessaries  of  life,  and  to  wealth  as  the  means 
of  many  gratifications,  would  be  changed.  They 
would  be  their  own  producers.  Instead  of  extorting 
the  means  to  realize  their  most  cherished  aims  from 
the  muscles  of  a  dependent  caste,  the  contest  must 
now  be  between  themselves.  The  desire  of  large 
wealth  and  the  ends  for  which  it  is  sought  would  be 
the  same  as  before,  and  the  strong  wills  and  the 
strong  brains  would  certainly  succeed  in  acquiring  it. 
But  wealth  necessarily  implies  poverty,  for  the  la- 
bor of  an  individual,  as  said  before,  is  equal  to  little 
more  than  the  supply  of  his  daily  necessities.  If  there- 
fore one  has  more  than  the  product  of  his  own  labor 
some  other  or  others  must  have  less,  if  much  more, 
many  others  must  have  less,  if  there  is  a  large  accu- 
mulation of  wealth  great  numbers  must  have  thus 
contributed  to  it.  Thus,  as  wealth  became  accumu- 
lated in  the  hands  of  the  comparatively  few,  soon  the 
natural  sources  of  wealth,  in  the  absence  of  moral  re- 
straint, would  be  monopolized  in  spite  of  legal  prohi- 
bitions ;  for  in  such  circumstances  wealth  controls 
law,  and  power  and  wealth  as  naturally  flow  togeth- 
er as  two  drops  of  water  run  into  each  other.  By 
means  of  this  alliance  and  monopoly  and  the  contin- 
ued competition  for  wealth  the  excluded  many  would 
be  deprived  of  larger  and  larger  proportions  of  the 
product  of  their  labor.  Then  comes  excessive  pover- 


42  THE     PAGAN     STATE. 

ty  and  consequent  ignorance ;  on  one  side  an  aristo- 
cracy of  wealth  and  power;  on  the  other  a  large  de- 
pendent producing  class,  and  the  Community  has 
disappeared,  the  Duality  is  restored  as  before. 

None  of  the  results  exhibited  in  this  chapter  are 
accidental,  but  natural  and  necessary  developments 
from  the  character  and  mutual  relations  of  the  act- 
ors. Accordingly  they  have  been  essentially  uni- 
form in  all  pagan  States.  Always  the  same  despot- 
ism of  the  comparatively  few  deriving  wealth  and 
power  from,  and  exercising  its  oppressions  upon  the 
subject  and  servile  masses  on  which  it  rests.  Whe- 
ther it  be  a  single  despot  and  millions  of  slaves,  or 
a  two-headed,  or  many-headed  beast  of  the  same 
species,  everywhere  it  enacts  the  same  inexorable 
fundamental  law — the  limit  of  right  is  power. — 
Whether  the  power  is  to  be  exercised  over  subject 
towns,  provinces,  kingdoms,  or  dependent  men  of 
whatever  names,  the  end  is  always  the  self-interest 
of  the  governors,  the  good  of  the  governed  never. — 
So  far  from  there  being  in  these  heathen  aristocra- 
cies any  tendency  towards  self-amelioration  and 
adaptation  to  the  true  end  of  the  State,  the  common 
good,  on  the  contrary  their  inherent  vice,  and  seeds 
of  disintegration  are  ultimately  destructive  of  their 
own.  Their  first  developement  is  towards  wealth 
and  power,  and  in  consequence  of  these,  or  rather 
by  means  of  these, — in  the  absence  of  all  efficient 
moral  restraint, — towards  luxury,  vice,  indolence, 
effiminacy,  cowardice,  vanity,  ostentation,  until  the 
ever  increasing  demand,  and  competition  for  wealth 
presses  intolerably  upon  the  masses  below  which  are 
the  source  of  it,  they  react  with  destructive  fury 
upon  their  now  degenerate  masters,  or  they  become 


THE     PAGAN      STATE.  43 

an  easy  prey  to  less  degenerate  neighbors.  In  either 
case  there  is  but  a  new  arrangement  of  elements,  to 
assume  gradually  the  same  form,  and  to  repeat  es- 
sentially the  same  process.  From  barbarism  to  self- 
destructive  civilization  ;  and  from  civilization  back  to 
barbarism.  This  is  the  natural,  inevitable,  and  end- 
less cycle  of  pagan  development  always  returning  in- 
to itself. 

If  Art,  Literature,  Science,  have  been  incidents 
of  the  development,  they,  mostly,  in  their  spirit  and 
uses,  do  not  give,  but  take  the  character  of  their 
period,  and  so  become,  on  the  whole,  promotive  of 
corruption  and  decay  rather  than  preventive  of  them. 
For  what  are  these  when  not  originating  in,  and 
subservient  to  "  The  Good,"  but  instruments  of  in- 
justice, darkness  and  depravity  ? 

Thus  in  every  possible  aspect  of  a  pagan  State  its 
power  to  realize  the  true  ends  of  a  State  is  found  to 
be  absolutely  wanting,  its  character  in  this  respect  is 
utterly  helpless  and  hopeless. 

It  is  plain  that  the  essential  and  fatal  defect  in  the 
character  of  the  pagan  State,  is  the  absence  of  a 
comprehensive  and  efficient  morality.  The  heathen 
morality  was  but  a  feeble  light  in  the  conscience,  but 
rarely  admitted  into  the  will.  It  shone  upon  the 
darkness,  which  however  desired  not  to  receive,  but 
to  exclude  it.  It  was  too  weak  to  control  relations 
where  its  right  to  do  so  was  acknowledged,  and  innu- 
merable relations  which  it  ought  to  have  governed 
were  hardly,  or  not  at  all,  suspected  to  come  within 
its  province.  No  kind  or  degree  of  knowledge  of 
physical  laws  could  remove,  or  tend  to  remove  this 
defect  in  regard  to  moral  laws.  For  what  physical 
law  is  that  the  knowledge  of  which  would  convince 


44  THE     PAGAN     STATE. 

a  man,  for  example,  of  the  injustice  of  slavery,  or 
imperatively  command  him  not  to  practice  it  ?  It 
was  not  more  or  better  Taste  that  was  wanting.  For 
what  appreciation  of  artistic  and  literary  beauty 
could  successfully  urge  its  admirers,  at  the  cost  of 
any  necessary  self-denial,  to  instruct  the  ignorant, 
to  reform  the  vicious,  and  to  cease  from  all  profitable 
wrongs  by  restoring  their  rights  to  those  whom  they 
had  deprived  of  them  ?  The  utter  imbecility  or  per- 
version of  the  sense  of  relative  justice  in  its  contest 
with  selfishness  was  a  deadly  disease  in  the  very  life- 
blood  of  the  pagan  State.  Everywhere,  in  all  social, 
civil,  political  and  business  relations,  besides  direct 
lawless  or  legal  oppressions,  justice  was  ignored  or 
habitually  failed  through  fraud,  the  power  of  the 
wrong  doer,  the  defects  of  the  law,  or  the  venality  of 
those  who  administered  it.  To  which  if  there  be  ad- 
ded the  frightful  depravity  of  private  life  among  all 
classes  we  may  see  how  far  such  a  State  was  from 
being  capable  of  realizing  the  true  ends  of  a  State  ; 
and  shall  have,  at  the  same  time,  a  measure  of  the 
light  and  salt  of  Christianity  which  must  permeate 
the  whole  corrupted  mass  in  order  to  transform  it  in- 
to a  successful  self-governing  Unity  and  true  Com- 
monwealth. The  more  we  examine  the  subject  in 
its  principles,  and  in  all  their  illustrations  in  history 
the  more  we  shall  be  convinced  that  the  true  State 
can  exist  only  as  an  incident  of  Christianity  ;  and  on- 
ly by  a  deeply  pervading  influence  of  its  purifying, 
quickening  and  controling  power. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  STATE.      THE  TRANSFIGURATION. 

Magnus  ab  integro  ssecloruin  nascitur  ordo. 
lam  nova  progenies  caelo  demittitur  alto, 

*        *         *         *       quo  ferrea  primum 
Desinet,  ac  toto  surget  gens  aurea  rnundo. 
Aspice  venture  loetantur  ut  omnia  saeclo  ! 

Another  period- conies,  new  order  reigns, 

A  gentler  power  from  Heaven  on  Earth  descends, 

Oppression's  iron  hand  shall  cease  its  sway, 

And  Justice  raise  aloft  her  golden  scales. 

See,  all  things  gladden  at  the  coming  change ! 

Christianity,  always,  and  in  every  country  in 
which  it  exists,  indirectly  aims,  and  tends  constant- 
ly to  remove  the  natural  duality  of  the  State,  and  to 
mould  it  into  the  form  of  the  true  self-governing 
Democracy,  or  representative  Republic;  and  will 
ultimately  realize  this  aim  in  all  States. 

These  are  very  lofty  pretensions,  and  it  may  be 
demanded  of  Christianity  as  it  was  once  demanded 
of  the  Author  of  it  in  the  exercise  of  the  like — "  By 
what  authority  doest  thou  these  things,  and  who  gave 
thee  this  authority?"  By  spiritual  authority,  a 


46  THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE. 

living,  active,  ever  aggressive  and  progressive  power 
— not  "a  stationary  agent,"  a  dead  morality  bor- 
rowed from  paganism,  as  its  enemies  assert.  An 
authority,  a  power  which  cannot  be  better  denned 
than  it  was  by  Him  who  is  the  source  of  it,  as 
"  leaven"  pervading  the  whole  mass  in  which  it  is 
placed ;  a  seed,  small  at  first,  but  by  its  inherent  life 
to  become  a  great  tree  ;  a  Divine  Power  conducting 
men  to  a  knowledge  of  "  the  whole  truth/'  and  able 
to  convict  and  convince  them,  with  imperative  au- 
thority, in  regard  to  "  sin,"  in  regard  to  "right- 
eousness," and  in  regard  to  a  "judgment  to  come," 
and  thus  making  the  Intellect  also  the  servant  of 
Duty  and  quickening  it  in  the  direction  of  all  true 
science.  This  is  no  pagan  ideal,  fair,  but  lifeless 
and  powerless  :  but  both  a  living  power  and  an  em- 
powering life,  a  self-executing  Law,  by  willing  obe- 
dience in  those  who  gladly  acknowledge  its  authori- 
ty, and  by  restraints  of  shame  and  fear  in  those  who 
are  resolved  that  it  shall  not  rule  over  them.  Here 
are  living  principles  capable,  like  those  of  science,  of 
indefinite  application.  Already  they  have  reached 
innumerable  relations  which  heathen  morality  never 
pretended  to  control,  and  are  still  far — who  knows 
how  far  ? — from  the  limits  of  their  righful  dominion. 
u  A  stationary  agent?"  0  learned,  but  verbose, 
and  shallow  Mr.  Buckle  and  Buckliculus  Draper  ! 
Let  us,  then,  look  at  a  short  catalogue — which 
might  easily  be  made  a  very  long  one — of  the  appli- 
cations of  these  principles  beyond  where  paganism 
ever  thought  of  going  ;  applications  not  made  all  at 
once,  and  becoming  stationary  there,  but  successive- 
ly and  aggressively — aggressions  often  resisted  by 
iire  and  sword  and  all  other  weapons  known  in  the 


THE      CHRISTIAN      STATE. 

^^*7*'  L/l_ 

^^^^  •:%»»' 

nether  armory,  but  hitherto  only  with  temporary 
success — true,  in  many  cases  the  contest  is  not  yet 
ended  but  the  past  is  sufficiently  indicative  of  the 
future. 

One  of  the  earliest  aggressions  of  Christianity  af- 
fecting the  civil  and  political  relations  of  men  was 
upon  the  practice  of  enslaving  captives  taken  in  war. 
At  the  same  time  it  raised  its  voice  against  slavery 
itself,  the  early  churches  spending  large  sums  in  re- 
deeming slaves  and  in  purchasing  captives  that  they 
might  not  be  reduced  to  slavery.  After  long,  deep, 
and  ever  more  and  more  controling.  leaven-like  in- 
fluences in  the  conscience  and  moral  being  of  men  it 
has  put  an  end  to  both  these  universal  practices  of 
the  ante-christian  world,  with  the  exception  of  the 
last  remnant  of  slavery,  under  the  ban  of  Christiani- 
ty and  of  Christendom,  driven  to  its  lair,  and  now 
contending  desperately  for  its  doomed  life.  That 
this  has  been  the  effect  of  the  moral  power  of  Christ- 
ianity we  have  as  it  were  the  evidence  of  our  senses, 
for  we  can  see,  in  the  records  and  confessions  of  the 
past,  the  very  process  of  fermentation  of  the  divine 
leaven  by  which  it  gradually  invaded  this  realm  of 
selfishness.  And  what  is  the  meaning  of  the  indig- 
nation of  universal  Christendom  at  American  slave- 
holding  but  a  terrible  protest  of  Christianity  itself 
against  the  injustice  of  slavery,  and  an  imperative 
demand  that  it  be  made  to  cease  ?  Or  is  this 
a  mere  protest  of  English  philanthropic  "  intellect'' 
against  the  error  of  southern  slaveholders  in  so  mis- 
taking their  own  best  interest  as  men  of  business  ? 

What  a  step  this  towards  bridging  the  impassable 
gulf  of  duality  in  the  pagan  State. 

But  a  still  greater  miracle  began  at  once,  on  the 


48  THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE. 

advent  of  Christianity,  to  manifest  itself  in  the  lower 
stratum  itself  of  the  State.  That  great  human— 
scarcely  human — mass,  otherwise  hopelessly  dead 
and  corrupt,  heard  the  voice  of  the  Son  of  God  and 
began  to  live.  No  longer  mere  animals,  having  only 
an  animal  life,  "live  tools,"  as  their  owners  and  em- 
ployers called  them,  they  felt  awakening  within 
them  the  consciousness  that  they  also  were  men, 
with  the  hopes,  the  rights .  and  the  duties  of  men. — 
The  slave  could  say,  as  he  firmly  refused  obedience 
even  to  imperial  commands  which  required  the  vio- 
lation of  duty, — ' '  I  too  am  a  Christian."  To  the 
poor  the  Gospel  was  preached.  The  most  stimulat- 
ing and  efficient  of  all  knowledge,  quickening  the 
very  centre  of  life,  now  gravitated  downwards. 
In  spite  of  all  after  attempts  to  prevent  it,  it  still 
found  its  way  downwards.  More  than  that,  the 
living  germs  became  rooted  and  developed  them- 
selves there  beyond  all  the  means  of  watchtul  and 
jealous  power  to  eradicate  them.  Strange  thoughts 
were  stirred  in  that  lowest  region  of  mind — did  not 
Christ  die  for  us  also  ?  are  not  we  more  than  brutes  ? 
have  not  we  some  human  worth  ?  Henceforth  this 
poor  dumb  humanity  found  voice,  and  in  its  upris- 
ings against  oppression  it  was  not  stimulated  wholly 
by  blind  rage,  but — Rights  !  give  us  our  rights  !  for 
we  also  are  men.  The  moral  man  was  first  aroused, 
for  religious  truth  was  addressed  directly  to  the  mo- 
ral ;  hopes,  aspirations,  daily  stimulated  the  intellect ; 
in  some  degree,  and  to  some  extent  a  better  and 
more  intelligent  life  prevailed;  concert  was  more 
successful;  alliances,  organization  became  possible; 
rights  were  demanded,  granted,  annulled ;  privileges 
purchased,  exemptions  bestowed,  especially  by  dy- 


THE      CHRISTIAN      STATE.  49' 

ing  oppressors,  "for  the  good  of  their  souls;"  and 
thus  slowly,  after  long  and  weary  contests  with 
the  various  orders  of  aristocracy,  after  many  vicis- 
situdes, arose,  from  the  lower,  the  great  middle  class- 
of  Europe — the  methods  varying  more  or  less  in  dif- 
ferent States,  but  the  result  always  the  effect  of  the* 
same  causes,  the  awakened  consciousness  of  rights 
from  below,  and  the  awakened  conscience  from  above. 
Here  too  the  deep  religious  influences  at  work  in 
the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  oppressed  are  every- 
where manifest.  In  all  their  struggles  and  discour- 
agements their  appeal  was  to  Christ  and  the  Saints. 
Their  confidence  in  them  seems  never  to  have 
failed  though  they  sometimes  complained  of  their  de- 
lay. How  like  the  religious  trust  of  our  own  op- 
pressed class  !  In  the  Legends  of  the  Saints  which 
were  their  nursery  tales  and  everywhere  their  solace 
and  amusement,  the  Saints  were  always  represented 
as  humble  themselves  and  condescending  to  the  poor, 
the  especial  protectors  and  defenders  of  the  rights  of 
the  poor.  The  depth  and  sincerity  of  their  religious 
belief  may  be  seen  in  the  terrible  effect  upon  them- 
of  a  papal  interdict.  We  may  call  this  superstition 
if  we  please,  and  truly  enough  in  one  aspect  of  it,. 
but  it  indicates  a  power  which  mere  physical  force 
backed  by  science  does  not  often  resist.  Tn  this 
contest  between  the  oppressors  and  the  oppressed  if 
both  parties  were  net  equally  pious  they  were  equal- 
ly superstitious,  and  while  the  one  trusted  confident- 
ly in  the  Saints,  the  other  knew  well  that  God  and 
the  Saints  were  against  them.  Hence  if  their  love 
of  right  prompted  them  to  grant  little,  fear  extorted 
much,  and  their  hope  to  bribe  heaven  at  death  was 
often  of  greatest  benefit  to  those  whom  they  had  on-^ 

5 


50  THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE. 

ly  wronged  during  life.  On  neither  side  was  there 
perhaps  sometimes  much  true  religion,  nevertheless 
the  true  principles  of  religion  made  both  instrumen- 
tal to  their  own  realization,  for  they  know,  how  to 
exercise  their  power  both  in  the  will  and  against  the 
will.  Thus  the  power  of  Christianity  to  mould  the 
State,  though  obstructed  and  retarded,  was  not  de- 
feated by  the  perverseness  of  the  material.  It  both 
guided  and  controled,  as  it  still  does,  not  only  those 
whom  it  had  made  enlightened  and  obedient,  but  al- 
so both  the  blind  and  the  rebellious. 

But  besides  the  strong  incidental  stimulus  given 
to  the  intellect  by  a  knowledge  of  religious  truth, 
Christianity  first  taught  and  demanded  that  the  in- 
tellect of  all  men  should  be  directly  cultivated  and 
developed.  This  is  one  of  the  applications  of  its 
principles,  this  is  among  the  commands  of  the  New 
Testament.  Here,  as  in  the  changes  effected  in  the 
civil  and  political  relations  of  men,  Christianity  ex- 
ercised its  influence  both  from  above  and  from  be- 
low. Men  of  the  higher  classes,  as  well  as  of  the 
lower,  and  great  numbers  of  them,  from  the  Apostles 
to  the  present  time,  have  spent  their  lives  with  great 
self-denial  in  preaching  the  Gospel  to  slaves,  and 
other  lowest  and  most  degraded  men.  Where  the 
facts,  the  hopes,  the  duties  of  Christianity  are  con- 
stantly made  known,  besides  the  result  in  the  moral 
character  of  those  thus  instructed,  can  the  effect  upon 
their  intellect  be  slight  ?  And  although  Christiani- 
ty has  been  slow  in  convincing  men  that  it  requires 
the  full  realization  of  all  their  powers,  and  that  the 
possession  of  a  faculty  implies  both  the  right  and 
the  duty  of  its  exercise,  vet  it  has  always  led  them 
in  this  direction.  The  same  men  who  have  most 


THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE.  51 

contributed  to  spiritual  enlightenment  have  also  first 
advocated,  and  assisted  to  give  education  of  the  in- 
tellect in  the  lowest  classes.  Not  only  are  all  the 
older  and  higher  Institutions  of  learning  in  Christen- 
dom of 'religious  origin,  but  the  very  idea  of  educa- 
tion as  well  as  gospel  for  the  poor,  of  universal 
education,  could  never  have  originated  but  in  Christ- 
ianity. 

A  very  small  seed  this  at  first  and  of  slowest 
growth,  but  at  length  this  also  has  "become  a  great 
tree"  of  which  many  millions  have  gathered  and  are 
gathering  the  fruit.  The  vast  sums  of  public  and 
private  charity  now  annually  expended  in  Christen- 
dom and  out  of  Christendom  for  the  education  of  those 
who  would  not  otherwise  be  at  all  educated  is  one  of 
the  grandest  results  of  the  application  of  Christian 
principles,  and  one  of  the  most  efficient — under  the 
control  of  higher  religious  teaching— towards  the  re- 
alization of  the  true  State. 

But  the  whole  influence  for  the  education  of  the 
otherwise  ignorant  has  not  come  from  above.  The 
lowest,  in  proportion  as  they  have  been  spiritually 
enlightened,  have  sought  education  for  themselves 
and  for  their  children.  It  was  this  influence  from 
below  which  produced  the  first  translations  of  the 
Bible  into  the  living  languages  of  Europe,  and  was 
of  great  value  to  the  self-elevating  class  in  their 
contests  with  their  superiors,  at  the  same  time  giv- 
ing much  trouble  to  men  who  had  directed  toe  divine 
leaven  not  to  overflow,  in  its  fermentation,  the  dish 
in  which  they  had  placed  it. 

Another  application  of  the  principles  of  Christi- 
anity, instituting  entirely  new  relations  between  the 
higher  and  lower  classes  of  men,  and  interesting  for 


•52  THE     CHRISTIAN      STATE. 

the  many  examples  it  has  furnished  of  the  power  of 
duty  over  selfishness  —  that  condition  sine 
qua  non,  and  very  life-blood  of  a  true  State — is 
found  in  the  very  extensive  provision  made  for  the 
sick  and  insane  poor,  and  for  their  children  ;  and 
even  for  the  vicious,  abandoned  and  guilty  poor.— 
This  provision  began  to  be  made  in  the  very  earliest 
periods  of  Christianity,  has  been  constantly  increas- 
ing, and  becoming  constantly  more  efficient  in  re- 
alizing the  ends  proposed  by  it.  This,  doubtless,  as 
all  good  things  may  be,  has  sometimes  been  abused 
through  the  unfitness  of  its  administrators.  But, 
even  so,  what  is  the  animus  towards  the  source  of 
this  and  other  permanent  good  results  of  Christiani- 
ty, manifested  by,  and  how  can  fitly  be  character- 
ized, the  assertion,  made  almost  in  sight  of  Hospi- 
tals centuries  old,  that  "  the  effects  of  the  most  ac- 
tive philanthropy  rarely  survive  the  generation  which 
witnessed  their  commencement ;  and  that,  when  they 
take  the  more  durable  form  of  of  founding  great  pub- 
lic charities,  such  institutions  invariably  fall,  first 
into  abuse,  then  into  decay,  and  after  a  time  are  ei- 
ther destroyed,  or  perverted  from  their  original  in- 
tention." Let  the  author  of  this  and  many  such- 
like falsehoods  be  treated  leniently.  He  could  not 
avoid  uttering  them,  for  he  was  building  a  showy 
structure  the  corner-stone  of  which  was  labeled — 
'*'  Morality  is  a  stationary  agent/''  He  might  with 
more  consistency  have  asserted  that  there  is  no  mo- 
rality, for  morality  necessarily  implies  personal,  free, 
responsible  beings,  which,  by  his  philosophy,  can  have 
no  existence. 

This  kindly  influence  of  Christianity  has  mani- 
fested itself  not  only  in  "  the  form  of  founding  great 


THE     CHRISTIAN      STATE.  5& 

public  charities,"  and  other  condensed  and  localized- 
products  of  Christian  duty — for  Christianity  demands 
charity  as  of  moral  obligation,  and  does  not  reckon  t 
it  a  mere  gratuitous  bestowment — but  this  same  in- 
fluence has  gradually  become  diffused  universally.. 
All  the  relations  of  men  have  been  more  or  less  soft- 
ened by  it.  That  of  man  to  woman — what  a  differ- 
ence between  the  present  and  that  of  barbarism,  or 
that  of  pagan  civilization  !  The  relation  of  the  pow- 
erful to  the  weak,  and  of  the  rich  to  the  poor — 
how  much  less  of  abjectness  and  cringing  servility,, 
how  much  more  self-appreciation  and  manhood  on 
the  one  side  ;  and  on  the  other  how  much  less  con- 
temptuous insolence,  and  purse-proud  disdain,  how 
much  more  respect  for  man  as  man,  and  acknow- 
ledgement of  rights  not  based  on  power  !  What  a- 
change  in  pecuniary  relations  since  the 'time  when 
the  debtor  could  be  sold  into  slavery  or  doomed  to- 
perpetual  imprisonment !  How  justice  has  softened 
its  rights  towards  ordinary  criminals,  and  how  ex- 
ceedingly rare  the  execution  of  prisoners  of  State ! 
Persecutions  of  so  called  heretics  have  almost  en- 
tirely ceased ;  not,  as  is  falsely  claimed,  by  reason, 
of  greater  intellectual  progress,  but  by  a  further  and 
truer  moral  development.  Religious  persecutions, 
that  is,  by  Christians,  have  originated  in  two  motives, 
and  in  both  cases  have  been  the  effect  of  straight-for- 
ward obvious  logical  conclusions.  In  the  one  case, 
ecclesiastical  power  cannot  tolerate  heresy  for  the 
same  reason  that  the  State  cannot  tolerate  rebellion. 
It  would  be  demonstrably  by  the  simplest  possible 
reasoning  suicidal,  and  power  rarely  lacks  intellect 
in  self-defence.  If  the  moral  had  been  as  much  cul- 
tivated and  as  vigorous  as  the  intellectual  in  cede-. 


54  THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE. 

siastical  Power  it  never  would  have  been  a  persecut- 
ing Power. 

In  the  other  case,  religious  persecutions  have  ori- 
ginated in  a  sincere  conviction  of  duty  based  upon 
the  plain  logic  that  religious  truth  is  better  for  men 
than  error,  and  that  therefore  the  one  is  to  be  by  all 
means  propagated,  and  the  other  by  all  means  des- 
troyed. The  logic  was  good,  the  intellect  did  its 
part,  but  there  was  a  flaw  in  the  moral  perception. 
The  relation  of  these  persecutors  to  Christianity  was 
too  intellectual.  A  more  spiritual  relation  to  it 
would  have  made  them  feel  that  as  religion  it  re- 
quires and  desires  and  can  accept  only  a  willing  and 
glad  reception  of  truth  and  rejection  of  error,  and 
that,  therefore,  as  Christ  had  announced  in  the  be- 
ginning, compulsion  could  have  no  place  in  his  reli- 
gion. 

In  regard  to  war,  what  a  difference  between  the 
present,  bad  as  it  is,  and  the  time  when  not  only  all 
the  treasures  and  private  wealth  of  a  captured  city, 
but  also  the  persons  of  all  its  inhabitants  were  the 
booty  of  the  captors  ! 

This  milder  type  of  relations  public  and  private, 
where  there  is  more  mutual  respect,  more  kindness 
and  more  justice,  is  bringing  men  constantly  nearer 
together,  giving  them  more  things  in  common,  and 
so  making  them  more  and  more  capable  of  forming, 
bye  and  bye,  a  true  Commonwealth. 

But  another  most  important  and  successful  result 
of  the  influence  of  Christianity  is  manifested  in  the 
progressive  elevation  of  the  standard  of  private  and 
social  morality.  Let  us  acknowledge  that  in  some 
Christian  countries  private  morality 'is  of  exceedingly 
low  type,  and  that  in  some  localities  in  all  Christian 


THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE.  55 

countries  it  might  more  fitly  be  denominated  heathen 
than  Christian  morality.  Yet,  on  the  whole,  if  we 
compare  it  with  the  morality  of  the  best  heathen  ci- 
vilizations, or  with  that  of  the  middle  ages  of  Eu- 
rope, the  difference  is  immense ;  and  if,  instead  of 
taking  the  whole  of  Christendom,  we  look  only  at 
those  parts  of  it  where  Christianity  is  not  the  mere 
performance  of  dead  ceremonies,  and  is  not  addressed 
exclusively  to  prudence  and  the  intellect,  but  to  the 
moral  and  spiritual  nature  of  man,  and  in  consequence 
exerts  its  true  and  peculiar  influences,  there  we  shall 
find  the  difference  between  heathendom  and  Christ- 
endom, in  this  respect,  all  but  total.  Where  Christian 
manners  are  at  the  worst  they  exhibit  the  first  symp- 
tom of  approaching  virtue,  or  at  least  of  respect  for 
virtue,  viz.,  hypocrisy.  They  have  the  grace  of 
shame,  which  is  progress  in  the  right  direction. — 
Vices  are  denied,  and  indulged  in  secretly,  which 
were  formerly  open  and  shameless. 

A  very  good  test  and  measure  of  the  development 
of  a  practical  and  efficient  moral  sense  in  Christen- 
dom may  be  found  by  examining,  for  different  pe- 
riods, the  manners  of  the  highest  classes,  especially 
those  of  the  courts  of  kings  and  princes.  Power  and 
wealth  tend  always  to  affect  the  character  of  their 
possessors  in  the  same  manner,  that  is,  in  the  ab- 
sence of  moral  restraints,  to  generate  habits  of  in- 
justice towards  others,  and  of  self-indulgence  and 
vice  in  themselves.  Restraints  may  exist  in  the  per- 
sonal character  of  those  to  be  restrained,  in  the  cha- 
racter of  those  around  'them,  or  in  the  character  of 
public  opinion,  the  character  of  the  standard  mora- 
lity of  the  period.  In  looking  over  the  history  of 
Europe  two  facts  are  quite  noticeable,  first,  that  the 


56  THE     CHRISTIAN      STATE. 

existence  of  an  efficient  public  opinion  is  of  pretty 
recent  date,  and,  whatever  might  have  been,  before, 
the  average  morality  of  a  people,  courts  and  courtiers 
were  entirely  above  its  influence ;  second,  that,  be- 
fore the  existence  of  a  more  or  less  controling  public 
opinion,  the  manners  of  courts  of  all  ranks — though 
on  the  whole  making  some  advance  since  the  tenth 
century — were,  with  scarcely  a  single  exception,  a 
disgrace  to  the  Christian  name.  Not  that  Christiani- 
ty lacks  power  to  restrain  men  in  such  circumstances 
— though  we  are  all  told  that  such  shall  hardly  be 
saved — but  they  had  the  power  and  the  disposition 
to  exclude  all  direct  and  true  influences  of  Christian- 
ity, and  felt  no  restraint  from  any  other  source.  But 
there  is  now  a  public  opinion,  a  universally  diffused 
Christian  morality,  or,  at  least,  sense  of  the  demands 
of  Christian  morality,  which  cries  shame, — and  that 
too  in  a  voice  which  has  to  be  heard — on  prince,  or 
king,  or  kaisar  whose  manners  are  such  as  were  not 
very  long  since  practiced  without  shame  or  rebuke. 
Would  Russia  now  tolerate  the  manners  of  Catherine 
II  ?  Would  any  German  State  abide  the  beastly 
princes  that  once  ruled  over  them  ?  Would  France, 
or  even  Paris,  now  permit  the  existence  of  a  ''  Pare 
aux  Cerfs?"  Not  to  go  back  to  the  early  Norman 
times,  would  the  people  of  England  now  tolerate  the 
manners  of  Henry  VIII,  the  court  of  Charles  II,  or 
even  those  of  the  Georges  ? 

It  is  the  exceedingly  shallow  opinion  of  some  very 
intellectual  people  that  Christianity  is  the  reasser- 
tion  of  some  pretty  old  rules  ot  heathen  morality, 
the  same  always  and  everywhere,  and  having  the 
same  power  always  and  everywhere,  that  is,  a  "  sta- 
tionary agent."  It  follows,  then,  inevitably,  either 


THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE.  57 

that  there  is  no  greater  amount  of  obedience  to  the 
law  of  duty  now  in  Christendom  than  there  was  or  is 
in  heathendom,  or  that  all  the  difference  is  due  to 
the  progress  of  intellect,  and  so  cannot  be  referred  to 
Christianity  at  all  whose  direct  aim  is  to  restore  and 
control  the  moral  and  spiritual  relations  of  men.  But 
is  there  now  any  more  or  more  earnest  obedience 
than  before  Christianity  to  those  laws  which  should 
prescribe  men's  ethical  character  and  relations,  and 
govern  all  relations  where  right  and  wrong  are  in- 
volved ?  Or  to  take  the  catalogue  of  rules  which  we 
are  told  includes  all  possible  morality.  1st  "  To  do 
good  to  others."  Is  there  more  good  done  to  others 
by  Christian  men  than  was  the  habit  of  heathen  men  ? 
2d,  "  To  sacrifice  for  others'  benefit  your  own 
wishes."  Have  Christian  men  made  any  more  of 
self-sacrifice,  or  have  more  Christian  men  made  it, 
and  in  a  greater  variety  of  ways  than  heathen  men  ? 
3d,  "  To  love  your  neighbour  as  yourself"  Is  there 
any  more  of  this  love  than  formerly,  or  is  the  defini- 
tion of  neighbour  more  comprehensive  than  former- 
ly? 4th,  "  To  forgive  your  enemies."  Are  ene- 
mies, whether  public  or  private,  treated  any  more 
mildly  than  formerly  ?  5th,  "  To  restrain  your 
passions."  Has  there  been  any  advance  anywhere 
in  Christendom,  or  in  Christendom  on  the  whole,  in 
private  and  social  morals  and  selt-control  ?  6th, 
"  To  honor  your  parents."  Has  there  been  any  ad- 
vance in  obedience  to  this  precept?  7th,  "To  re- 
spect those  who  are  set  over  you." 

I  suppose  that  no  one  will  deny  that  these  old 
rules,  which  anciently  were  as  dead  as  any  other 
heathen  ideals,  have,  within  the  last  thousand  years, 
been  somehow  getting  themselves,  on  the  whole, 


58  THE     CHRISTIAN      STATE. 

more  and  more  obeyed,  that  they  have  become  living 
and  controling  principles  of  conduct  in  the  lives  of 
vast  numbers  of  men ,  that  they  extend  to  very  many 
relations  which  they  did  not  pretend  to  reach  for- 
merly, and  that  they  pervade  as  guide  and  restraint 
with  varying  energy  the  entire  mass  of  Christendom. 
Whence  then  this  life  which  seems  to  have  been  in- 
fused into  them  ?  Is  it  a  divine  empowering  from 
Christianity  according  to  its  promises,  ct  the  life  from 
God  entered  unto  them  ?"  Or  is  it  a  stimulus  from 
the  human  intellect? 

What  is  the  relation  of  the  scientific  intellect  to 
the  moral  disposition  and  character  of  men  ?  Is  it 
a  relation  of  cause  and  effect  such  that  the  intellect, 
in  proportion  to  its  development  and  acquisitions, 
produces  or  increases  the  willingness  to  obey  the 
laws  of  duty,  of  right,  and  of  ethical  propriety  ?  The 
natural  relations  of  the  intellect  are  to  all  physical 
and  physiological  facts  and  relations  ;  to  the  sciences 
of  the  inorganic  and  of  the  organic  ;  to  a  knowledge 
of  the  mutual  relations  of  the  organic  and  inorganic  : 
to  pure  science ;  to  political  science  ;  to  the  science 
of  itself — to  the  science  of  intellect.  Thus  in  pro- 
portion to  its  acquisitions  it  determines  what  is  or 
can  be  within  its  own*  sphere,  but  it  has  no  relation 
to  what  ought  to  be.  To  determine  this  is  the  func- 
tion of  other  faculties.  Every  moral  relation  im- 
plies the  obligation  of  duty,  obedience  to  the  law  of 
the  relation.  The  moral  faculty,  the  will,  as  the  mo- 
ral executive,  is  capable  of  two  relations  to  this  law, 
that  of  co- willing  and  that  of  counter-willing,  that 
of  obedience  and  that  of  disobedience.  Now  which 
of  the  knowledges  from  all  the  realms  of  science  ne- 
cessarily determines  the  will  towards  obedience  to 


THE     CHRISTIAN      STATE.  59 

the  law  of  duty  ?  It  is  true  they  may  furnish  to  the 
moral  faculty  new  means  of  realizing  the  ends  of 
duty ;  but  they  also  furnish  it  with  new  means  and 
new  temptations  to  refuse  to  seek,  and  to  defeat  the 
ends  of  duty.  That  is,  the  moral  faculty  when 
brought  into  relation  to  the  intellect,  and  to  any  or 
all  of  its  acquisitions,  will  act  exactly  according  to 
its  disposition  and  character  ;  to  the  good  they  will 
be  a  means  of  good  ;  to  the  bad  a  means  of  evil.  If 
they  have  any  tendency  to  change  either  character 
it  would  seem  to  be  for  the  worse,  for  it  is  found 
throughout  history  that  the  higher  and  more  intel- 
ligent classes  are  morally  worse  than  those  below 
them.  But  this  is  probably  only  a  seeming  effect.— 
It  is  not  perhaps  the  direct  effect  of  the  knowledge 
but  of  the  wealth  and  power  it  is  the  means  of  ac- 
quiring, for  when  not  accompanied  by  these  inci- 
dents such  effect  is  not  always  produced.  We  may 
say  then  that  the  relation  of  the  intellect  to  the  char- 
acter of  the  moral  faculty  is  that  of  indifference.  It 
is  neither  better  nor  worse  for  the  intellect ;  it  is 
neither  more  nor  less  efficient  for  good  or  for  evil  in 
proportion  to  its  means.  Or  if  there  is  any  differ- 
ence the  arrogance  pride  and  selfishness  of  the  scien- 
tific is  increased.  Modern  intellect  has  not  discov- 
ered any  new  principles  of  morality,  for  these  all  of 
them  which  are  possible,  we  are  told,  have  been 
known  from  time  immemorial,  and  it  is  not  the 
function  of  intellect  to  discover  or  apply  principles 
of  morality.  If  then,  there  is  in  Christendom  a 
very  much  higher  tone  of  morality,  a  very  much 
wider  application  of  its  principles,  and  more  general 
obedience  to  its  laws  than  ever  existed  in  heathen- 
dom, whatever  may  be  the  cause,  it  is  not  because 


60  THE     CHRISTIAN      STATE. 

intellect  is  the  "  only  progressive  agent."  If,  how- 
ever, any  one  asserts  that  morality  and  religion  are 
only  a  wiser  selfishness  enlightened  by  intellect  let 
him  rejoice  in  that  opinion. 

But  if  the  intellect  has  no  power  to  stimulate  the 
moral  faculty,  what,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  rela- 
tion of  the  moral  faculty  to  the  intellect  in  this  re- 
spect ?  Just  in  proportion  to  the  sincerity  and  ener- 
gy of  the  moral  executive  in  obedience  to  duty  will 
be  the  desire  to  find  means  to  realize  the  ends  of 
duty.  When  the  moral  faculty  is  itself  truly  quick- 
ened it  becomes  the  true  quickening  power  of  all  the 
other  faculties  of  the  man.  The  intellect  is  at  once 
called  upon  as  the  organ  of  ways  and  means,  and 
though  powerless  as  a  cause  of  morality,  as  an  effect 
and  instrument  of  it  most  valuable  and  efficient. — 
That  such  is  the  true  relation  of  the  moral  to  the  in- 
tellectual, and  such  the  effect  of  it,  is  not  only  a  mat- 
ter of  constant  observation  in  cases  of  individual 
men,  or  associations  of  men,  but  often  whole  nations 
are  aroused  to  an  intellectual  energy  and  accom- 
plishment which  no  other  influence  could  have  effect- 
ed. For  conscientious  men  the  cultivation  of  the 
intellect  is  among  their  prune  duties.  It  is  u  talent 
which  to  hide  in  a  napkin  is  a  most  heinous  offence 
against  Him  from  whom  whom  they  received  it. 

It  is  certain,  then,  that  the  morality  of  Christen- 
dom, in  whatever  it  is  superior  to  pagan  morality, 
owes  the  difference  to  the  effect  of  the  divine  leaven 
of  Christianity.  It  is  not  under  the  patronage  of  its 
servant  intellect,  nor  has  it  its  roots  in  that  soil  where 
of  all  others  there  is  the  least  "  deepness  of  earth," 
the  aesthetic  beauty  of  virtue,  but  in  the  Christian 
KELIGIOX.  It  is  moreover,  a  reliable  conclusion 


THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE.  61 

which  may  be  drawn  from  a  comparison  of  the  pre- 
sent— however  still  imperfect — with  the  past,  that 
Christianity  is  capable  of  bringing  all  the  laws,  cus- 
toms, and  institutions  of  men  into  conformity  with 
its  principles.  Where  such  laws  are,  as  indeed  they 
are  already  in  some  communities,  if  not  wholly,  at 
least  in  great  part,  willingly  obeyed,  there  will  be 
realized  another  of  the  conditions  preparatory  to  the 
existence  of  the  true  State.  This  is  the  condition 
of  all  other  conditions,  the  indispensable  Christian 
salt,  without  which, — and  hi  greater  quantity,  I 
fear,  than  is  yet  to  be  found  in  any  whole  country 
— the  permanent  existence  of  a  self-governing  State 
is  impossible. 

It  is  plain,  however,  from  this  short  and  incom- 
plete catalogue  of  results,  from  these  undeniable  ef- 
fects of  Christianity  already  realized,  that  the  con- 
stituent halves  of  the  aboriginal,  natural  Duality 
are,  and  have  been,  from  the  beginning  of  Christia- 
nity, constantly  approaching  each  other ;  and,  if 
they  are  not  yet  fused  together  and  become  homo- 
geneous, they  are  fairly  in  contact,  or  at  least  the 
space  between  them  is  well  bridged,  the  intercourse 
between  them  is  free  and  constant,  and  in  some  parts 
there  is  mutual  interpenetration,  and  combination  all 
but  complete  from  the  highest  top  to  the  lowest  bot- 
tom. 

But  has  the  power  of  Christianity  reached  in  all 
directions  its  limits  ?  Or  are  there  limits,  this  side 
of  a  degree  of  influence  necessary  to  the  existence  of 
the  true  State,  beyond  which  it  cannot  extend  ?  The 
divine  leaven  has  manifested  already  mighty  power, 
is  it  not  equal  to  leavening  the  whole  lump  ?  Per- 
haps we  shall  be  the  better  prepared  to  answer  these 

G 


62  THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE. 

questions  correctly  if  we  examine  more  directly  the 
methods  of  Christianity,  and  its  actual  workings  as 
illustrated  and  exhibited  in  its  history,  and  why  it 
is  that  Christian  civilization  does  not,  and  will  not. 
like  pagan  civilizations,  revert  again  to  barbarism, 
but  its  progress,  if  not  always  in  a  straight  line  is 
never  apocatastatic  but  always  further  and  further 
from  its  starting  point. 

Christianity,  from  its  very  beginning,  became  not 
only  a  new  life  in  the  morality  of  the  world  but  a 
new  element  in  the  politics  of  the  world.  By  its 
moral  power,  by  awakening,  we  may  say  creating, 
an  efficient  consciousness  of  DUTY,  it  preached,  suc- 
cessfully, "  deliverance  to  the  captives,"  and  pro- 
claimed from  heaven  "  good  will  to  men."  On  the 
other  hand,  by  awakening  more  and  more  in  all  men 
the  consciousness  of  RIGHTS  for  all  men,  with  invi- 
tation of  appeal  to  God  in  their  assertion  and  de- 
fence, it  indicated  its  latent  power  to  "break  in 
pieces  and  subdue;"  it  proclaimed  "a  sword"  for 
all  things  and  men  incorrigibly  incompatible  with 
civil  and  political  JUSTICE,  whatever  laws,  customs, 
institutions,  kingdoms,  empires,  or  other  powers  to 
the  contrary  notwithstanding.  As  Religion  it  re- 
stores the  true  spiritual  relations  of  men,  which  in 
their  inmost  nature  are  willing  relations,  so  that  co- 
ercion in  regard  to  them  is  contradictory  to  their 
very  idea — they  are  realized  in  the  Church.  But 
relations  of  practical  morality,  of  mutual  justice,  of 
civil  and  religious  freedom,  of  equality  of  privilege 
and  opportunity,  all  that  pertains  to  the  common 
earthly  well-being  of  associated  men,  Christianity 
assigns  to  the  State.  '  These  relations  Christianity, 
by  its  principles,  proclaims  to  be  the  rights  of  the 


THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE  63 

citizens,  and  to  maintain  them  is  the  duty  of  the 
State,  not  only  by  enactment  and  exhortation  but  by 
compulsion  ot  those  who  refuse  obedience.  Coercion, 
when  necessary,  is  implied  in  the  very  idea  of  the 
State,  because  it  is  the  State  and  not  the  Church. 
But  the  duty  and  the  right  of  coercion  are  on  condi- 
tion of  a  right  end  for  which  it  is  used.  The  Gov- 
ernment may  not  say,  "  I  am  the  State,"  unless  it 
exists  for  the  ends  of  the  State.  Ultimately  the 
People  is  the  State  by  the  first  law  of  nature,  that 
of  self-preservation.  Christianity  requires  obedience 
to  powers  ordained  of  God,  but  not  to  those  ordained 
of  the  Devil.  It  announces  the  right  in  all  possible 
relations,  and  demands  obedience  to  it,  but  it  contains 
no  principle  of  suicide,  of  obedience  to  wrong  which 
would  annihilate  itself.  As  Religion  is  not  only 
without  (outside  of  )  the  State,  but  it  is  above  the 
State,  and  from  the  very  first  claimed  for  men  the 
right,  and  the  paramount  duty  of  obedience  to  a 
"  Higher  Law"  than  that  even  of  Caesar.  Here  was 
the  first  practical  collision  between  Christianity  and 
Power  as  force,  in  distinction  or  separation  from 
right.  Long,  obstinate,  and  terrible  has  been  the 
contest,  but  Christianity  has  all  but  everywhere 
triumphed,  not,  as  is  pretended,  because  Power  is 
wiser,  but  because  it  is  relatively  weaker  than  for- 
merly. 

But  aristocratic  Power,  though  often  very  indig- 
nant at  the  Christian  higher  law,  has  also  its  own 
higher  law,  best  expressed  in  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciple of  Asiatic  despotism,  that  the  king  de  facto — 
by  whatever  means  his  power  was  acquired,  and  for 
whatever  purposes  it  may  be  employed — is  also  de 
jure,  and  of  divine  right,  to  be  obeyed.  This  doc- 


THE     CHRISTIAN      STATE. 

trine  once  universal  in  Christendom  is  now  every- 
where renounced,  or  if  not,  latent,  or  rarely  ex- 
pressed, and  never  practically  asserted ;  for  there  is 
in  Christian  States  a  widely  diffused  leaven  known  by 
experience  to  be  sometimes  dangerously  explosive  in 
its  fermentation.  Thus  unjust  power  acknowledges 
itself,  restrained  by  two  imperative  commands  dir- 
ectly from  below,  but  indirectly  from  above — Thou 
shalt  not  forbid  what  Christian  duty  enjoins,  or  en- 
join what  it  forbids  : — Thou  shalt  not  withold  from 
men  what  Christian  principles  declare  to  be  their 
rights  as  men  ;  and  because  necessary  to  the  perfor- 
mance of  their  duties.  It  is  true  that  to  a  great  ex- 
tent these  commands  are  still  unwillingly,  and  there- 
fore, imperfectly  obeyed.  These  principles  are  far 
from  being  fully  carried  out,  but  it  is  felt  on  both 
sides  that  they  must  henceforth  control  more  and 
more  the  relations  of  government  and  governed. — 
DUTIES  !  RIGHTS  ! — rights  in  relation  to  duties — 
words  without  meaning  in  pagan  politics,  but,  uttered 
by  the  mouth  of  Christianity,  words  of  power  to  re- 
volutionize all  Christian  States.  What  a  difference 
since  when  the  vast  majority  of  all  the  inhabitants 
of  the  State  were  contemptuously  called  '-live 
tools  ;"  and  when  a  free  Christian  people  makes  its 
government  aware  that  the  State  is  for  them  and  not 
they  for  the  State,  except  it  be  in  order  to  the  true 
ends  of  the  State. 

This  remarkable  transformation  of  the  State,  mar- 
velous— if  we  consider  it — this  mutual  transposition 
of  the  parts  of  the  original  duality  such  that  the 
former  slaves  have  become,  or  are  rapidly  becoming 
in  effect  the  masters,  while  the  ancient  masters  are 
little  more  than  the  Agents  of  those  who  were  once 


TUE      CHRISTIAN      STATE.  65 

their  "  tools"  or  perhaps  in  some  cases  a  little  longer 
lords  by  courtesy  ;  a  transformation  by  which  what 
was  once  an  inert  mass,  an  unassiniilated  appendage 
outside  of  the  political  organism  has  come  to  be  the 
seat  of  the  central  and  true  life  of  the  State — all 
this  is  the  natural  and  necessary  result  of  the  very 
METHOD  of  Christianity. 

There  are  many  intimations  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment that  the  Gospel  is  intended  especially  for  the 
poor.  Christ  gives  it  as  one  evidence  of  his  Messiah- 
ship,  that  the  poor  have  the  Gospel  preached  to 
them.  He  blesses  the  poor.  He  pronounces  a  woe 
upon  the  rich.  He  asserts  that  the  rich  shall  hardly 
enter  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  only  because  all 
things  are  possible  with  God.  God  hath  chosen  the 
poor  of  this  world,  says  an  Apostle.  We  know,  ac- 
cordingly, that  Christianity  had  its  first  success  al- 
most exclusively  among  slaves  and  in  the  lower 
classes  of  the  State.  Not  many  rich,  not  many 
mighty  were  called.  God  has  chosen  the  weak  to 
confound  the  mighty  in  more  senses  than  one.  What 
then !  is  God  partial,  and  is  not  the  Gospel  ad- 
dressed to  all  men  alike  ?  God  is  no  respecter  of 
persons,  and  the  Gospel  is  intended  equally  for  all 
classes. 

An  obvious  and  easy  explanation  of  the  language 
of  the  New  Testament,  and  the  difference  in  the  re- 
ception of  the  gospel  between  the  rich  and  the  pow- 
erful on  the  one  side,  and  the  enslaved  and  the  poor 
on  the  other  side,  is  found  in  the  character,  require- 
ments and  promises  of  the  Gospel  itself.  Dives  was 
receiving  good  things  in  this  life,  and  was  much  less 
likely  than  Lazarus  to  be  aroused  by  hope  for  the 
future.  Power  then  claimed  to  hold  divided  empire 


66  THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE. 

with  Jupiter,  and  in  proportion  to  the  degree  and 
rank  of  it  would  be  less  inclined  to  put  faith  in  the 
promise  of  a  Divine  Protector  than  the  weak  and  op- 
pressed. Christianity  by  all  its  principles  and  pre- 
cepts demands  righteousness,  which  includes — though 
this  is  a  secret  not  generally  known — doing  right. 
It  demands  justice  between  man  and  man  in  all  rela- 
tions. u  Also,  He  that  ruleth  must  be  just,  ruling 
in  the  fear  of  God."  It  is  plain  that  these  promises 
and  principles  and  precepts  were  gospel  to  those  who 
had  no  hope  in  this  world,  to  those  who  suffered 
wrong,  who  were  the  victims  of  endless  oppressions 
and  godless  despotism,  in  quite  another  sense  than 
to  those  lapped  in  present  ease  and  luxury,  who  pro- 
fited by  doing  wrong,  grew  rich  by  oppressions,  and 
great  by  the  exercise  of  unjust  power.  What  a  to- 
tally different  and  contrary  aspect  and  practical  re- 
lation must  the  new  religion  have  had  to  the  oppo- 
site sides  of  the  dual  State  !  To  the  one  side  full  of 
hope,  encouragement,  an  awakening  to  the  conscious- 
ness of  manhood,  life  from  the  dead ;  to  the  other 
side — if  they  had  believed  it — full  of  reproof,  and  of 
demands  for  self-denials,  self-humiliations  and  self- 
abnegations  of  all  sorts  where  injustice  had  served 
the  ends  of  selfishness.  Would  not  even  those  in- 
clined to  good,  were  it  not  to  cost  so  much,  go  away 
sorrowful  ? 

Thus  Christianity,  the  divine  seed,  "  takes 
root  downwards,  and  bears  fruit  upwards."  — 
This  is  its  METHOD  ;  this  is  the  law  of  it.  This  is 
the  key  to  its  whole  history  and  results  in  relation 
to  the  State.  This  is  the  reason  why  Christian  States, 
Christian  civilization,  are,  and  are  to  be,  permanent- 
ly progressive ,  while  that  of  paganism  was  necessari- 


THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE.  67 

ly  circular.  From  the  first,  the  common  people 
heard  the  gospel  gladly,  and  it  pervaded  with  consi- 
derable rapidity  the  lower  stratum  of  the  State  ; 
while,  from  the  first,  the  aristocratic  class  rejected  it 
with  contempt,  or  perhaps  with  instinctive  percep- 
tion of  its  consequences  to  themselves ;  next  they  at- 
tempted to  destroy  it,  and  failing  in  this,  true  to 
their  character,  they  sought  to  modify,  pervert,  and 
make  it  subservient  to  their  own  purposes,  then,  and 
always  since,  not  without  success.  This  is  the  stand- 
ing type  of  the  relation,  varying  within  very  nar- 
row limits,  between  aristocracy  and  Christianity.— 
Yet  the  primitive  inert  mass  transformed  into  a  peo- 
ple, as  it  becomes  leavened  more  and  more  with  the 
consciousness  of  Duty  and  Right,  the  Salt  and 
Light  of  Christianity,  is  ever  encroaching  from  be- 
low in  spite  of  aristocratic  power  or  perversion,  whe- 
ther civil  or  ecclesiastical.  These  allied  powers, 
though  they  may  sometimes  be  reached,  and  more  or 
less  restrained  by  the  leaven  of  duty  from  above  al- 
so, yet  while  they  exist,  and  to  the  extent  that  they 
exist  as  such,  retain  always  essentially  the  same 
character. 

The  Roman  Empire  furnishes  no  exhibition  of  the 
full  working,  and  outworking  of  these  antagonist 
forces  in  relation  to  each  other.  The  lower  class,  to 
a  great  extent  calling  themselves  Christian,  under 
the  incredible  luxury  and  extravagance  of  their  mas- 
ters in  the  now  decaying  Roman  World,  were  under 
more  grinding  and  irresistible  oppressions  than  ever. 
They  were  not  yet  sufficiently  elevated  by  the  influ- 
ences of  Christianity  to  enable  them  to  throw  off  the 
crushing  weight  that  rested  upon  them,  or  to  con- 
stitute for  themselves  a  better  State  if  they  could 


68  THE     CHRISTIAN      STA.TB. 

have  done  so.  Although  there  had  been  much  pas- 
sive resistance,  and  a  strong  vital  reaction  against 
some  of  the  forms  of  unjust  power,  there  was  yet 
very  little  if  any  restraining  or  conservative  influ- 
ence from  below.  On  the  other  side,  though  nomi- 
nal Christianity,  such  as  court  bishops  would  be 
likely  to  preach  it,  had  reached  the  imperial  throne, 
and  of  course  the  court  and  many  of  the  governing 
class,  yet  the  whole  upper  stratum  of  the  State  was 
so  totally  and  irretrievably  debased  and  corrupt,  so 
rotten  to  the  core,  that  its  preservation  was  impossi- 
ble, or  at  least,  God  did  not  choose  to  make  it  pos- 
sible. The  Roman  heathen  civilization  was  essen- 
tially heathen  to  the  end,  and  followed  the  heathen 
law.  The  Empire  only  perished  a  little  sooner  than 
it  otherwise  would  because  there  happened  to  be  out- 
side barbarians  to  give  it  the  coup  de  grace. 

At  the  end  of  the  Roman  Empire,  and  in  the  poli- 
tical chaos  which  followed,  Christianity  may  be  said 
to  have  had  a  new  beginning,  at  least  in  regard  to 
its  modifying  influence  upon  the  State,  for  the  old 
pagan  duality  was  everywhere  in  the  new  States  re- 
tained. How  much  of  the  true  leaven  was  left 
among  the  remnant  of  the  wretched  victims  of  servile 
oppression,  civil  wars,  and  barbarian  slaughter  who 
were  to  mingle  with  the  heathen  hordes  that  recruit- 
ed their  numbers,  it  is  impossible  to  tell.  Unfortu- 
nately for  them  the  church  duality,  as  well  as  that 
of  the  State,  was  retained,  or  rather,  the  Church 
aristocracy  had  become  essentially  one  with  that  of 
State.  The  original  constitution  of  the  church  as  a 
visible  community  was  such  as  the  idea  necessarily 
determined  it  to  be.  It  naturally  assumed  the  form 
of  a  self-organizing,  self-governing  democracy.  No 


THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE.  69 

power  could  be  exercised  in  it,  or  by  it,  but  spiri- 
tual power.  It  had  no  authority  but  spiritual  au- 
thority ;  and  those  best  fitted,  by  their  own  spiritual 
character,  to  exercise  it  as  the  organs  of  the  Church 
were  to  be  designated  by  the  spiritual  body  itself. — 
But  by  a  gradual  perversion — easy  to  understand — 
of  these  offices  in  the  church  to  other  than  spiritual 
ends,  they  became  desirable  for  other  than  spiritual 
men.  Hence,  as  power  other  than  spiritual,  and 
wealth  came  to  be  appendages  of  these  places  in  the 
church,  the  persons  occupying  them  often  proved  to 
be  more  worldly  than  heavenly  -minded.  Not,  how- 
ever, as  has  been  asserted,  because  Christian  princi- 
ple has  not  power  to  resist  such  seductions,  but  be- 
cause where  the  carcase  is  there  the  birds  of  prey 
are  most  likely  to  be  found.  That  worldly  men, 
wise  in  their  generation,  might  more  certainly  se- 
cure these  places  for  themselves  they  soon  effected  a 
change  in  the  mode  of  election  of  bishops  by  which 
they  were  nominated  from  without,  and  for  form's 
sake  there  was  to  be  an  approval,  or  pretended  ap- 
proval, by  the  people  ;  and  finally  they  came  to  be 
appointed  without  any  reference  whatever  to  the 
people  they  were  to  govern.  Bishoprics  were  at 
length  among  the  richest  spoils  of  power,  given, 
taken  away,  bought,  and  sold ;  and  the  first  appeal 
to  the  people  was  when  they  were  called  upon  to  pay 
the  price  they  themselves  had  brought  in  market. — 
Even  long  before  the  miserable  end  of  the  Empire, 
instead  of  the  spiritual  communities  instituted  by  the 
Apostles,  each  selecting  its  holiest  men,  "  elders"  in 
the  spiritual  life,  to  be  its  own  teachers,  and  to  pro- 
claim the  gospel  to  the  unconverted  world,  there  was 
built  up  an  immense  hierarchy  rank  above  rank  of 


70  THE     CHRISTIAN      STATE. 

Christian  "  DIGNITARIES,"  vieing  in  wealth  and  dis- 
play, in  pride  and  luxury,  and  in  unprincipled  in- 
trigue and  ambition,  with  senatorial  and  equestrian 
nobles. 

Two  most  unfortunate  consequences  of  this  misde- 
velopment  fell  directly  upon  the  great  producing 
lower  class  already  overburthened  with  the  weight 
of  imperial  extravagance.  In  order  to  support  this 
new  establishment  competing  with  that  of  the  secu- 
lar aristocracy,  vast  sums  additional  to  those  neces- 
sary for  the  government  and  for  the  old  aristocracy 
had  to  be  extorted  from  the  Christian  people.  This 
was  the  clerical  way  of  enforcing  obedience  to  the 
Apostolic  direction  "  bear  ye  one  another's  bur- 
dens." But  this  was  the  least  of  the  two  re- 
sulting evils.  Would  the  bishops  and  other  high 
clergy,  whose  personal  character  was  no  better  than 
that  of  their  pagan  contemporaries  of  equal  rank  and 
wealth,  continue  long  to  preach  in  its  purity  a  reli- 
gion every  precept  of  which  was  a  sentence  of  con- 
demnation against  themselves?  No  !  they  would  not, 
and  did  not.  But  as  a  class — though  of  course  with 
many  individual  exceptions  where  by  chance  truly 
Christian  men  had  come  to  be  bishops — as  a  class . 
<c  instead  of  endeavoring  to  cherish  and  promote  se- 
rious, vital  Christianity,  they  did  everything  in 
their  power  to  suppress  it,  because  it  presented 
such  a  strong  and  to  them  vexatious  contrast  to  their 
own  mode  of  life.  Serious  and  piously  disposed  lay- 
men were  persecuted  by  such  clergymen  as  danger- 
ous censors  of  their  conduct.  Often  they  were  ex- 
communicated from  the  church,  or  they  separated  of 
their  own  accord  from  such  spiritual  guides,  because 
they  could  not  believe  it  possible  that  men  so  pol- . 


tr; 


THE     CHRISTIAN      STATE. ^£  TI 

luted  with  every  vice  should  serve  as  instrin 
for  the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit."  (Neander.)  It' 
was  much  more  to  the  taste  and  for  the  interest  of 
such  men  to  let  down  Christianity  into  paganism, 
than  to  bring  up  paganism  to  Christianity. 

We  find,  then,  on  the  breaking  up  of  the  Western 
Koman  Empire,  each  of  its  fragments  assuming  essen- 
tially the  same  form  as  that  of  the  whole.  On  the  one 
side  of  the  Duality  the  secular  governing  aristocracy 
of  the  State,  and  in  alliance  with  it  the  ecclesiastical 
aristocracy  of  the  Church  ;  on  the  other  side  what 
remained  of  the  lower  Christian  population,  with  a 
large  infusion  of  fresh  paganism. 

One  arrangement  derived  from  that  of  the  primi- 
tive Apostolic  communities,  and  of  great  ultimate 
advantage  to  the  lower  class,  was  retained,  or  soon 
everywhere  restored — the  whole  State  was  divided 
into  parishes,  each  having  its  own  local  priest,  whose 
duty  it  was  to  see  that  all  the  inhabitants  should 
attend  mass  on  Sundays  and  feast  days,  not  excluding 
the  serfs  of  the  fields  and  forests.  Such  constant 
meeting  together  of  the  same  parish  people  could 
not  fail  to  make  them  more  and  more  capable  of 
concerted  action  whenever  it  should  be  necessary. 
And  however  rude  and  ignorant  the  priest  might  be 
— as  he  often  was — and  though  Christianity  was 
presented  to  them  for  the  most  part  under  sensuous 
forms,  yet  some  spiritual  truth  would  find  its  way 
to  many  hearts,  and  the  intellect  of  all  would  be 
more  or  less  excited.  If  we  add  the  effect  of  the 
legends  of  the  saints  constantly  repeated,  the  occa- 
sional or  frequent  preaching  of  more  earnest,  more 
pious,  and  intelligent  monks,  and  the  religious  dis- 
putes among  their  superiors  often  going  on  in  their 


72  THE     CHRISTIAN      STATE. 

hearing,  and  discussed  more  or  less  among  them- 
selves, with  here  and  there  the  influence  of  a  truly 
pious  Bishop,  it  is  plain  that,  in  the  most  corrupt 
times  of  the  hierarchy,  even  the  lowest  rural  com- 
munities were  under  educational  influences  both 
moral  and  intellectual  which  must  raise  them  very 
high  above  the  condition  of  corresponding  pagan 
populations.  Already,  instead  of  the  "  live  tools" 
of  paganism  there  is  coming  to  be — though  still  ig- 
norant and  in  great  part  enslaved — a  PEOPLE. 

It  is  a  singular  proof  of  the  divine  power  and  per- 
vading energy  of  the  Christian  leaven  that  even 
from  such  a  people  there  arose  frequent  protests  not 
only  against  the  vices  of  the  clergy  but  also  against 
their  corruptions  of  doctrine  and  pollutions  of  the 
pure  morality  of  the  Gospel.  It  was  in  self-de- 
fence that  the  priesthood  took  away  the  source  of 
pure  doctrine  by  forbidding  the  use  of  the  Bible  to  the 
laity.  But  besides  the  protests  of  the — no  doubt 
often  obscure— Christian  consciousness  and  duty  from 
below  there  was  another  cause  of  protest.  For  a  long 
time,  such  a  people,  most  of  them,  would  not  ob- 
ject to  the  metamorphosis,  in  itself,  of  an  inward  and 
spiritual  religion  into  outward,  showy,  and  exciting 
formalities ;  to  the  exchange  of  the  worship  of  God 
in  spirit  and»in  truth  for  the  worship  of  images  and 
relics,  pilgrimages  to  shrines  and  holy  wells.  But, 
unluckily  for  the  people,  even  in  regard  to  this 
world,  every  one  of  the  innumerable  ceremonies  and 
observances  of  this  unspiritual  religion  put  money 
into  the  pockets  of  the  ecclesiastical  aristocracy  by 
taking  it  from  their  own.  Add  to  this  the  pecuniary 
oppressions  of  the  lay  lords  and  of  the  government ; 
and  the  compulsory  labor  exacted  by  both  the  secu- 


THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE.  73 

lar  and  ecclesiastical  powers,  and  there  were  reasons 
enough  why  protests  of  right  against  robbery  and 
extortion  should  be  both  frequent  and  more  and  more 
imperative.  Here,  then,  we  have  the  two  parts  of 
the  ethnico-Christian  Duality  brought  face  to  face,  • 
their  forces  marshaled  for  the  "irrepressible  con- 
flict;" on  the  one  side  by  direct  or  incidental  Chris^ 
tian  influences,  on  the  other  by  the  principles  of 
pagan  government ;  on  the  one  side  the  demands  of 
duty  and  right,  on  the  other  the  denials  of  aristo- 
cratic power  both  secular  and  ecclesiastical.  The  re- 
sult of  the  battle  so  far,  for  we  are  yet  only  midway 
of  the  fight,  is  the  Christendom  of  to-day  compared 
with  that  of  the  ninth  century.  Let  us  take  cour- 
age, therefore,  which  we  shall  the  more  if  we  look 
at  the  methods  and  some  examples  of  the  manoeuver- 
ing  of  the  contending  forces. 

The  double  aristocracy,  though  often  contending 
with  kingly  and  priestly  pride  as  to  which  half 
should  take  rank  and  precedence  of  the  other,  and 
as  to  which  should  have  priority  of  extortion,  has  al- 
ways been,  in  relation  to  the  people,  one  power. 
The  pagan  power  first  despised  Christianity  ;  then 
sought  to  destroy  it ;  then  to  use  it.  Precisely  so 
the  post-pagan,  but  not  anti-pagan,  alliance  of  Church 
and  State  first  despised  the  rising,  emergent  Christian 
people ;  then  attempted  to  destroy  it  as  such,  and 
by  keeping  it  in  the  position  of  the  heathen  lower  class, 
to  make  it  wholly  subservent  to  its  own  ends.  In 
all  Christian  reactions  from  below,  of  conscious  duty 
against  vice  or  false  doctrine,  which  are  sufficient  to 
alarm  the  ecclesiastical  aristocracy,  and  which  it  could 
not  negotiate  with,  it  has  called  upon  its  ally  the 
State  to  put  down  the  "  heretics  ;"  and,  in  order  to 
7 


74  THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE. 

prevent  the  like  it  not  only  took  away  the  Bible,  but 
invented  new  arts  and  institutions  of  darkness  and 
demoralization.      Where  consciousness  of  right  has 
reacted   against  oppression  and  extortion,  if  wide- 
spread enough  to  deserve  notice,  the   State,   besides 
its  diplomatic  watchword  "  divide  and  conquer,"  has 
freely  and  cruelly  used  its  material  power,  and  called 
upon   its  willing  ally  to  preach  non-resistance,  pass- 
ive obedience,  and  the   divine   right   of  kings.     I 
speak  of  the  method  and  measures   of  this   double 
power  only  as  a  whole.     Many  individuals  in  each 
moiety  of  it  have  been  reached  by  the  true  Christian 
leaven  and  have  counteracted  to  the  extent  of  their 
ability  and  sometimes  at  the  expense   of  their  lives, 
what  Christianity  disapproves.  But  this  power  itself, 
and  neither  moiety   of  it — as  is   plain  from  recent 
manifestations  of  its  essential  and  unchangeable  na- 
ture, though  it  has  sometimes  prudently  assumed  a 
very  mild  type  of  late  years — has  ever  yielded  any- 
thing to  the  people  except   through   force   or   fear, 
fear  from  below,  or  fear  from  above ;  for  superstition 
has  been  of  great  benefit  as  well  as  injury  to   the 
people,   and   death-bed  repentances   of   kings   and 
smaller  oppressors  have  yielded  to  them  many  rights 
which  they  must  otherwise  have   taken,  and  would 
in  due  time  have  taken  by  the  strong   arm.     The 
creed  of  aristocracy  is  the   shortest  known  "  POW- 
ER is  RIGHT."     Its  choice  of  means  is    therefore 
unlimited.     According  to   circumstances  it  can  use 
force,  fraud,  flattery,  bribery,  assassination.     Begin- 
ing  with   the  claim  of  being  God's  Anointed,  it  has 
come  down  to  ask  to  be   legitimated  by  the  people. 
Just  now,  however,  it  is  in  high  hopes  of  recovering 
this  important  lost  position,  so  as  no  longer  to   be 


I 


THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE.  75 

obliged  to  say  to  the  people  u  by  your  leave  ;"  plot- 
ting deeply  where  it  dares  not  use  force,  and  using 
force  where  it  hopes  to  overcome  resistance  ;  its  an- 
cient arts  of  lying,  slandering,  dividing,  bribery  and 
corruption  everywhere  revived  ;  its  hired  tools  every- 
where scattered ;  it  means  to  weaken  by  demoraliza- 
tion what  it  could  not  otherwise  conquer.  These  are 
the  methods  and  means  by  which  the  two  headed 
power  has  ever  aimed  to  keep  in  menial  relation  to  it- 
self, in  moral  and  intellectual  degradation,  and  so 
under  abject  control,  the  people  it  governs. 

Long,  painfully  weary  and  slow,  has  been  for  the 
people  the  process  of  ascent  from  the  double  slavery 
of  soul  and  body  to  its  present  elevation.  And  let 
no  sneering  pretended  believers  ,  lay  or  clerical,  in 
the  impossibility  of  the  peoples'  dispensing  with  their 
guardianship,  and  of  their  becoming  capable  of  self- 
government,  still  flatter  themselves  that  this  is  a 
movement  to  be  arrested.  They  will  find  it  a  vital 
development,  a  slow,  unequal,  but  sure  uprising  of 
growth,  and  building  up  of  an  organism  compact  and 
vigorous,  the  more  energetic  the  more  it  has  to  act 
on  the  defensive,  as  the  thousand  storms  that  try  the 
strength  of  the  oak  at  the  same  time  do  but  increase 
it.  The  reaction  of  the  moral,  or  rather,  of  the  rel- 
igious consciousness  of  men  from  below  upwards 
against  vice  and  false  doctrine,  the  persistent,  ob- 
stinate, and  rebellious  appeal  to  the  Law  of  Dutj 
as  highest,  are  remarkable,  we  may  say  unnatural 
factspeculiar  to  Christian  times  and  Christian  men.  The 
reaction  of  conscious  Right  against  injustice,  at  least, 
a  perserving,  more  and  more  intelligent,  efficient  and 
successful  reaction,  is  also  peculiar  to  the  same  times. 
Tt  is  observable,  moreover,  that  the  religious  reaction, 


76  THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE. 

certainly  at  all  the  chief  stages  and  great  crises  of  the 
contest,  has  constantly  preceded  the  political ;  but 
also  that  this  has  constantly  followed  the  other  like 
its  shadow.  This  is  not  an  accidental  relation  of 
these  two  vital  forces  ;  for  religious  duty  demands 
civil  freedom,  rights,  as  the  condition  of  obedience 
to  its  own  laws  ;  and  the  mere  reaction  of  suffering 
against  oppression,  as  the  worm  turns,  without  the 
vitalizing  infusion  of  duty,  has  never  proved  success- 
ful. If  sometimes,  righteous  indignation  against 
oppression,  has  taken  the  form  of  terrible  and  des- 
tructive wrath  against  the  oppressors,  it  was  more 
than  passion  which  enabled  it  to  succeed.  Another 
great  fact.  These  religious  and  political  reactions 
from  below,  whether  against  immorality,  or  against 
injustice,  whether  against  religious  or  political 
wrengs,  as  far  as  they  have  attained  to  successive 
limitations  of  the  wrong,  have,  with  comparatively 
Blight  oscillations,  held  their  ground.  Each  new 
advance  against  the  enemy  has  been  from  the  vant- 
age-ground of  previous  points  gained.  These  living 
ferments  invade  and  repress  successively,  all  customs, 
manners,  laws,  institutions  inheriting  or  adopting 
pagan  wrongs  and  corruptions.  The  new  wine  bursts, 
one  after  another,  all  the  old  bottles  in  which  it  is 
attempted  to  confine  it.  That  this  gradual  invasion 
and  permanent  occupation  by  the  people  of  what 
were  once  the  undisputed  domains  of  the  double 
aristocracy,  restraining  their  vices,  restraining  in- 
justice, limiting  power,  demanding  better  manners, 
better  religion,  better  politics,  is  a  fact,  and  the 
great  fact  of  modern  history ;  and  that  this  has  been 
the  effect  of  the  divine  leaven,  of  the  empowering 
life  of  Christianity  working  from  below  upwards, 


THE      CHRISTIAN      STATE.  77' 

the  result  of  the  gospel  preached  to  the  poor,  an  al- 
lusion to  only  a  few  of  the  steps  of  the  process  will 
make  undeniable. 

From  the  very  earliest  times  began  the  protests  of 
duty  against  arbitrary  power,  and  of  the  spiritual 
life  against  the  formalizing  pretenders  to  it.  Christ 
himself  described  to  the  letter  the  contest  into  which 
Christianity  was  about  to  enter,  and  foretold  the  re- 
sult of  it.  "  You  shall  stand  before  governors  and 
kings ;  you  shall  be  as  lambs  in  the  midst  of  wolves  ; 
yet,  fear  not,  it  is  the  Father's  good  pleasure  to  give 
you  the  kingdom,"  a  kingdom  that  "  shall  break  in 
pieces  and  subdue  all  other  kingdoms."  Whether 
this  promise  will  be  fulfilled  or  how  far  fulfilled,  in 
the  realization  of  the  true  self-governing  State  is  not 
material  to  the  present  purpose,  it  certainly  includes 
this  as  an  incidental  result. 

The  two  forms  of  reaction  of  Christianity  against 
the  forces  and  influences  that  would  restrain  or  cor- 
rupt it  in  its  free  development,  against  what  would 
forbid  the  realization  of  its  primary  spiritual  pur- 
pose, and  against  what  opposes  its  incidental  results) 
may  be  distinguished  but  cannot  always  be  easily 
separated.  Reaction  towards  religious  ends,  if  it 
does  not  always  include,  at  least  originates  reaction 
towards  political  well-being.  Always  and  every- 
where Christianity  has  manifested  itself,  and  pro- 
gressively more  and  more,  by  protest  of  duty  against 
prohibition  to  obey  God  rather  than  man  ;  of  awak- 
ened moral  sense  against  vices  of  superiors ;  of  spiri- 
tual life  and  knowledge  against  formality  and  false 
doctrine ;  of  intellect  against  dogmatic  tyranny ; 
of  conscious  manhood  against  being  reckoned  and 
treated  as  "  live  tools  :  "  of  civil  and  political  rights 


78  THE      CHRISTIAN     STATE. 

a  gainst  the  unjust  deprivations  and  extortions  of 
power.  Whether  these  reactions  have  been,  all  of 
them,  according  to  the  true  spirit  of  Christianity  is 
not  here  the  question ;  but  whether,  if  any  of  them 
have  not  been  so,  they  were,  nevertheless,  the  natural 
and  necessary  incidents  of  its  presence.  Christian- 
ity, as  a  spiritual  religion,  excludes  every  form  of 
coercion  as  contradictory  to  its  very  idea,  both  in  the 
propagation  of  truth,  and  in  resistance  to  error ;  a 
doctrine  contrary  to  the  conclusions  of  the  under- 
standing, and  acknowledged  only  in  the  deepest  reli- 
gious consciousness  ;  a  doctrine  which  arbitary  power 
and  dogmatic  prescription  have  always  rejected  in- 
stinctively as  not  suited  to  their  ends,  and  in  regard 
to  which,  at  least  as  to  restraining  error,  many  good 
men  have  been  the  dupes  of  their  logic.  Dreadful 
have  been  the  consequences  of  this  error,  whether 
originating  in  malice  or  mistake.  For  the  great  body 
of  Christians  has  held  to  only  spiritual  or  passive  re- 
sistance to  prohibitions  and  prescriptions  of  arbit- 
rary power  in  violation  of  conscience. 

But  the  citizens  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  are  also 
citizens  of  the  State,  and,  as  such,  they  have  no 
duties,  rights,  or  relations,  different  from  those  of 
other  citizens.  Most  unhappy  have  been  the  conse- 
quence of  confounding  these  two  relations,  of  the  no- 
tion that,  because,  as  Christians,  men  can  only  use 
spiritual  weapons,  they  must,  therefore,  suffer  them- 
selves to  be  deprived  of  their  natural  rights  as  men, 
and  of  those  common  to  other  citizens  of  the  same 
State  with  themselves.  It  is  not,  however,  necessa- 
ry to  enter  into  the  casuistries  which  lie  between 
Church  and  State.  It  is  sufficient  for  the  argument 
that  true  Christianity,  as  in  the  Church  it  tends  to 


THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE  79 

give  predominance  to  the  spiritual  over  the  formal, 
so  in  the  State  it  transfers  the  old  reverence,  obedi- 
ence and  loyalty  of  men  from  personal  visible  Maj- 


esty— found  so  often  by  bloody  experience  to  cover, 
not  God's  vicegerent,  but  demons — to  the  truly  di- 
vine majesty  of  God's  Justice;  ever  less  and  less 
Rex,  ever  more  and  more  Lex. 

The  first,  one  of  the  longest  and  deadliest  ot  the 
collisions  of  Christianity  with  Power,  and  one  which 
perhaps  more  than  any  other  has  exhibited  the  irre- 
pressible energy  of  the  divine  leaven,  has   come  of 
the  reaction  of  duty  and  conscience  against  prohibi- 
tion.    "  Did  we  not  straightly   command  you   that 
ye  should  not  teach  in  this  $"ame  ?"     said  the  Jew- 
ish Priesthood.     We  shall  obey  God,   however,  said 
the  Apostles.     This  religion  shall  have  no  place  in 
the  Roman  Empire,  said  Csesar — and  thousands  and 
tens  of  thousands  of  martyrs  found  that  it  was   no 
idle  threat.     But  shortly  the  doomed  religion  found 
place  and  kept  place,  even  in  the   imperial   palaces, 
and  in  the  throne  itself.    You  shall   not  preach  her- 
esy, said  the  Pope  to  the  Waldenses,  and  gave  com- 
mand to  fire  and  sword  to   exterminate   them  ;    but 
to-day  Waldensian  missionaries  preach  safely  under 
the  very  shadow  of  St.  Peter's.     You  shall  not  have 
the  Bible,  said  the  ecclesiastical  aristocracy  to  the  la- 
ity of  all  Christendom,  and  shortly  everywhere  blaz- 
ed bonfires  of  Bibles  and  of  those  -who  read  them ; 
but  in  how  much  of  Christendom  is  the  Bible  now 
not  read  freely  ?    You  shall  not,  said  Leo.    I  shall, 
said  Luther,  and  a  million  voices  echoed,  we  shall ; 
and  a  Protestant  Germany,  almost  a  Protestant  Eu- 
rope was  the  filling  out  of  the  response.  Prohibitions  to 
the  Flemings  by  two  men  whose  names  stink  in  the 


SO  THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE. 

nostrils  of  history,  backed  by  characteristic  penalties, 
mercifully  softened,  however,  for  women  who  should 
recant,  by  burying  them  alive  instead  of  burning  ; 
a  few  hundred  thousand  heretics  destroyed  and — 
free  Netherlands  and  prohibitions  extinct.  "The 
Reformed  "  shall  not  live  in  France,  but  die,  said 
the  Pope,  the  Cardinals,  the  Guises,  and  Philip. 
So  said  Louis  XIV  and  the  Jesuits.  But  neither 
St.  Bartholomew  nor  the  Dragoons  could  accomplish 
the  threat,  and  the  burning  bush  of  '-'The  Religion" 
in  France,  far  from  bring  consumed,  is  more  flourish- 
ing than  ever.  You  shall  not  worship  God  accord- 
ing to  the  dictates  of  your  consciences,  but  of  ours, 
said  king  Charles,  and  pope  Laud — The  Common- 
wealth and  New  England  were  the  answer.  You 
shall  not  have  a  Kirk  but  a  Church,  said  Charles  II 
and  the  Bishops  to  the  Scots ;  but  the  Kirk  lives  and 
was  never  in  better  health.  You  shall  not  tax  your- 
selves but  be  taxed  at  my  pleasure,  said  king  George 
to  the  puritans  of  New  England.  The  American  Re- 
public was  their  reply. 

Several  things  are  to  be  observed  in  regard  to  the 
rebellious  (so  called)  reactions  of  duty  against  pro- 
hibitory power,  of  which  the  above  are  alluded  to  as 
a  few  examples  out  of  many.  First  they  are  reac- 
tions from  below  upwards — not,  however,  simply  of 
the  governed  against  the  government  (a  fact  neces- 
sarily implied)  but  of  the  people,  of  the  popular  con- 
science ;  for  the  purest  religious  truth  like  gold 
among  sand  is  the  heaviest  and  tends  downwards. 
It  is  true  that  many  individuals  of  the  higher  class- 
es have  joined  in  these  movements  and  sometimes 
have  originated  them,  but  always  it  is  the  people 
which  have  given  them  momentum,  and  by  whose  en- 


TUB     CUUISTIAN      STATE.  81 

durance  and  fortitude,  whether  in  passive  or  active 
resistance,  the  opposing  power  has  been  limited.  It 
is  among  them  that  the  leaven  most  efficiently  as- 
similates the  lump.  It  is  among  them  that  the 
blood  of  the  martyrs  has  been  the  seed  of  the  Church. 
It  is  they  who  have  rarely  retreated  from  a  point 
once  gained,  or  if  repressed  for  a  time  by  overwhelm- 
ing force  or  betrayed  by  false  or  incompetent  lead- 
ers, it  has  been  but  as  the  retreating  wave  which 
gathers  strength  for  an  advance  beyond  its  former 
limits. 

Second,  These  reactions  have  been,  successively, 
more  and  more  wide-spread,  more  general,  either  in 
particular  States,  or  in  several,  or  many  States,  or 
in  the  form  of  a  common  opinion  or  demand  of  Chris- 
tian men  which  power  has  not  thought  it  prudent  to 
refuse. 

Third,  The  demands  of  conscience  for  freedom 
have  been,  progressively,  wider  and  wider  in  their 
extent.  Since  the  time  when  ecclesiastical  and  se- 
cular corruptions  and  tyranny,  in  spite  of  much 
mostly  unavailing  protest,  reached  their  lowest  point, 
there  has  been  a  gradual,  and  to  a  great  extent, 
successful  reclamations  in  regard  to  all  the  ritual, 
doctrines,  and  organization  of  the  Church,  a  revin- 
dication, and  to  a  considerable  degree,  in  some  coun- 
tries, a  practical  restoration  of  primitive  and  pure 
Christianity  to  all  its  rights  and  duties,  and  where 
this  has  not  been  attained  there  is  yet  a  hopeful 
tendency  in  the  same  direction.  Conscience  has 
successfully  asserted  its  freedom ;  and  disarmed 
Power  professes  repentance  for  innumerable  mur- 
ders because  it  has  no  longer  the  means  to  repeat 
them.  That  its  sorrow  is  for  the  loss  of  its  prero- 


82  THE      CHRISTIAN      STATE. 

gatives  and  not  for  the  abuse  of  them  is  plain 
enough  from  its  movements  wherever  there  is  the  least 
hope  of  regaining  them. 

The  reactions  of  the  awakened  Moral  Sense  were 
and  are  peculiarly  Christian,  notwithstanding  the 
opinion  of  "progressive  intellect"  that  Christianity 
is  only  a  re-enactment  of  pagan  morality.  The  pa- 
gan moral  sense  was  dead  "  past  feeling  "  as  St. 
Paul  says.  Immediately  on  the  early  misorganiza- 
tion  of  the  Church,  but  more  especially  after  Chris- 
tianity became  the  religion  of  the  State,  many  men 
not  only  wordly  and  unspiritual,  but  who  were  essen- 
tially pagan  in  character,  found  their  way — for 
the  reasons  already  given — into  the  places  of  honor 
and  emolument  in  the  church.  These  men  took  of- 
fice over  Christian  communities  already  established 
and  instituted  by  better  men  than  themselves,  com- 
munities which  had,  moreover,  read  or  heard  read, 
and  reverenced  the  writings  of  the  Apostles.  It  is 
easy  to  understand,  therefore,  how  the  manners 
of  the  rich,  half-pagan  higher  clergy  gradually 
came  to  offend  the  moral  sense  of  the  Christian 
people.  Accordingly  we  find  many  of  the  early 
heresies — as  the  Bishops  their  historians  very  natur- 
ally called  them — accompanied  by  most  offensive  (to 
the  Bishops)  protests  against  the  vices  of  the  clergy. 
Whether  they  contained  any  other  errors  of  doctrine 
is  not  often  easy  to  determine,  since  our  knowledge 
of  them  is  chiefly  derived  from  their  enemies.  It  is, 
however,  quite  supposable  that  they  contained  some 
incorrect  opinions ;  for,  if  the  lives  of  the  clergy 
were  the  true  fruit  of '"orthodoxy,"  it  was  time 
that  Christianity  should  mean  something  else.  In 
fact,  all  the  way  down  to  the  great  protest  and  her- 


THE     CHRISTIAN      STATE.  83 

esy  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  immorality  and  se- 
cularity  of  the  priesthood  of  the  dominant  church 
drove  from  it  immense  numbers  of  men  in  the  form 
of  so  called  —  and  often  truly  so  called  —  heretical 
sects,  which,  whatever  their  errors  of  doctrine,  insist- 
ed upon  the  strictest  morality  of  the  IS  e\v  Testament, 
were  frequently  reactions  of  genuine  spiritual  life 
against  dead  formalism,  and  always  of  a  moral  sense 
against  episcopal  ethics.  How  far  these  may  have 
contributed  to  produce  or  to  preserve  a  better  mor- 
ality among  the  people  especially  when  aided  by  the 
bloody  persecutions  of  the  ecclesiastical  aristocracy 
by  which  most  of  them  were  suppressed  or  driven 
into  concealment,  it  is  impossible  to  determine. 

Asceticism  in  its  various  forms, — another  reaction 
against  worldliness — though  not  peculiar  to  Christia- 
nity, though  often  not  originating,  even  among  chris- 
tians,  in  a  truly  Christian  spirit,  and  at  the  best  in  a 
very  imperfect  idea  of  Christianity,  a  reaction  from 
one  extreme  to  the  other,  was  yet,  on  the  whole,  at 
least  for  many  centuries,  a  salt  of  very  considerable 
conservative  power  in  the  lower  classes  against  the 
demoralizing  influences  from  above.  For  though  an- 
chorites and  monks,  disgusted  with  the  vices  around 
them,  and  especially  with  those  of  their  religious  su- 
periors, fled,  in  what  would  now  be  called  cowardice, 
from  the  world,  and,  as  we  perhaps  unjustly  accuse 
them,  with  an  exclusive  and  selfish  concern  for  their 
own  salvation  yet  such  was  not  the  estimate  of  their 
conduct  by  their  contemporaries,  and  their  influence 
upon  the  world  they  had  deserted  was  far  from  being 
merely  negative.  On  the  contrary,  their  marvellous 
self-denials  and  zeal  for  the  honor  of  God,  as  they 
were  reckoned,  in  contrast  with  the  conduct  of  the 


84  THE     CHRISTIAN      STATE. 

clergy,  filled  the  minds  of  the  people  with  unbounded 
admiration.  Their  prayers,  their  religious  counsel, 
their  blessing  were  eagerly  sought  by  thousands  and 
millions,  counsel  kindly  and  often  wisely  given.  All 
this  could  not  be  without  moral  influence  upon  the 
character  of  their  admirers.  The  history  of  monastic 
institutions  shows  this  influence  to  have  been  very 
great.  Their  wealth,  for  the  most  part  a  spontaneous 
tribute  to  their  supposed  virtues,  is  proof  if  not  the 
measure  of  this  influence.  It  was  by  the  earlier 
monks  especially  that  slavery  was  condemned,  and  in 
later  periods,  after  they  became  ecclesiastics,  it  was 
from  among  the  monks  that  came  the  most  spiritual, 
truly  Christian  and  efficient  preachers  at  home,  and 
missionaries  to  the  pagans.  It  is  true  that  these  in- 
stitutions, as  they  became  rich,  became  also  corrupt, 
or  corrupt  men  naturally  found  their  way  into  them, 
and  that,  when  the  fat  offices  of  abbot-or  prior  came 
to  be  filled  from  outside  of  the  communities,  and 
were  bought  and  sold  like  bishoprics,  bad  men  were 
found  in  the  one  for  the  same  reasons  that  they  were 
in  the  other.  But  the  institutions  themselves  were 
not  therefore  discarded  by  public  opinion.  New  re- 
actions were  successively  springing  up  from  lessons 
which  the  teachers  themselves  had  forgotten,  and  fresh 
ascetics  with  severer  rules  were  ever  ready  to  enter 
upon  the  holy  warfare,  sooner  or  later,  however — 
though  sometimes  after  worthy  service — to  fall  into 
the  same  disastrous  defeat,  and  from  the  same  causes 
as  their  predecessors.  The  monasteries  not  only 
preserved  learning,  and  produced  many  learned  and 
many  truly  pious  men,  but  they  were  institutions  of 
education  for  persons  not  belonging  to  their  commu- 
nities, for  children,  and  to  orphan  children  instruction 


THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE  85 

was  given  gratuitously.  All  the  way  across  the 
dreary  darkness  of  ecclesiastical  corruptions  and  im- 
moralities we  find  from  among  the  monks,  the  lower 
clergy  and  the  lower  laity,  a  succession  of  spiritual- 
minded  men  reproving  and  protesting  to  those  above 
them,  and  preaching  truer  doctrines  and  better  mor- 
ality to  the  people,  often  with  so  much  annoyance 
and  shame  to  the  aristocratic  clergy  that  they  inflicted 
upon  them  every  degree  of  penalty  from  command  to 
be  silent  to  cutting  out  the  tongue  and  burning  at 
the  stake.  Notwithstanding  that  many  of  the  monks 
were  the  willing  and  most  efficient  tools  of  ecclesias- 
tical despotism,  spies,  informers,  traducers  and  oper- 
ators of  the  inquisition;  and  although  in  order  to 
prevent  both  danger  and  annoyance,  the  attempt  to 
extinguish  truth  was  persevering,  and  the  effort  to 
demoralize  all  the  sources  of  instruction  were  suffi- 
ciently successful,  yet  the  very  excesses  of  cruelty 
and  vice,  instead  of  awakening  the  fear  of  the  one, 
and  sympathy  with  the  other,  only  aroused  in  the 
minds  of  the  people  indignation,  and  that  most  dan- 
gerous of  all  the  enemies  of  power,  contempt.  If  we 
look  at  the  upper  stratum  of  European  civilization  at 
the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  at  the  un- 
speakable manners  of  the  Courts,  especially  at  those 
of  the  court  of  Rome,  whose  orgies  outheathened  the 
most  heathenish  enormities  ever  exhibited  by  the 
pagan  city;  at  the  ways  and  means  for  this  impious 
debauchery  derived  from  the  open  and  public  sale, 
in  all  the  markets  of  Christendom,  of  crimes  and 
vices,  with  a  regular  tariff  of  prices,  from  that  of  mur- 
der downward ;  a  little  later,  at  a  Most  Christian 
Majesty  deriving  the  largest  item  of  his  revenue  from 
the  sale  of  tickets  of  permission  to  eat  good  dinners 

8 


86  THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE. 

in  lent ;  at  one  half  the  property  of  Europe  in  pos- 
session of  lazy  ecclesiastics  in  the  open  practice, 
most  of  them,  of  every  vice  that  enormous  wealth 
enabled  them  to  indulge  in,  and  fire  and  fagot  for  all 
gainsayers — if  we  look  at  all  this,  should  we  not  say 
that  Christianity  is  utterly  extinct,  and  that  human 
society  must  inevitably  fall  to  pieces  from  very  rot- 
tenness. 

But  truth,  though  fallen  in  the  streets,  had  not 
been  destroyed  ;  rejected  by  the  rich  and  noble  it  had 
as  usual  turned  to  the  poor  ;  the  good  seed  which 
had  all  along  been  scattered  by  the  wayside,  though 
sought  after  with  very  devilish  inquisition,  was  not 
wholly  devoured  up ;  some,  though  mixed  with  tares , 
had  fallen  into  good  ground  and  was  about  to  bring 
forth  fruit  an  hundred  fold.  The  gospel,  which  the 
people  had  long  since  procured  for  themselves  in  their 
own  languages,  and  of  which  they  had  been  robbed, 
was  yet  here  and  there  concealed,  and,  as  always, 
manifested  its  power  to  open  the  eyes  of  the  blind. 
The  hidden  leaven  was  fermenting  silent  and  deep, 
and  all  the  more  energetically  for  the  weight  of  pro- 
hibitions which  vainly  sought  to  crush  out,  or  to 
circumscribe  and  confine  it.  Hence  it  was,  that,  when 
a  just  anathema  against  shameless  vice,  and  spiritual 
wickedness  in  high  places,  was  uttered  by  a  simple 
monk,  unholy  power  defied  with  appeal  to  God,  and 
a  true  word  of  gospel  proclaimed  in  the  Name  of 
Christ  and  not  of  the  saints,  in  every  part  of  Europe 
the  popular  response  was  as  if  by  a  preconcerted 
signal ;  and  that  innumerable  hearts,  as  if  already 
prepared,  rose  up  to  meet  and  welcome  the  truth. 
This  was  eminently  an  uprising  of  the  people,  for  in 
regard  to  those  of  the  aristocracy  who  joined  in  it,  in 


THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE.  87 

how  few  cases  was  it  not  the  seed  among  thorns, 
choked  and  unfruitful.  Glorious  Coligny  "qui  me- 
ritait  d'etre  du  peuple,"  and  William  the  Silent,  a 
few  heroic  German  Princes,  and  here  and  there  a 
very  small  number  besides  of  individuals  of  noble 
birth,  accepted,  or  were  ready  to  receive  the  crown  of 
martyrdom,  while,  with  the  rest  of  the  class,  that 
religion  was  the  best  which  was  most  subservient  to 
their  own  ends,  or  at  best  their  suffering  for  it  ceased 
a  good  way  short  of  the  stake.  While  they,  for  the 
most  part,  were  calculating  how  the  new  religion 
would  affect  their  worldly  interests,  among  the  people 
it  was  spreading  from  heart  to  heart  by  mutual  in- 
struction and  exhortation,  and  with  a  sincerity  that 
defied  danger  and  death.  Hundreds  of  thousands 
of  martyrdoms  could  not  overcome  their  perseverance 
or  prevent  their  final  triumph.  The  reproclauiation 
of  the  primitive  doctrines  of  Christianity,  the  reaction 
of  the  spiritual  against  the  formal,  was  accompanied 
by,  was,  in  fact,  primarily,  a  reaction  of  the  moral 
not  only  against  the  incredible  vices  of  the  time  in 
high  places,  but  against  the  shameless  and  impious 
public  traffic  in  vice  and  crime  as  the  principal  source 
of  the  Church's  revenue. 

It  was  to  be  expected,  therefore,  that  there  would 
be  here  a  natural  meeting  of  extremes,  and  that  the 
reformed  clergy  should  sometimes  extend  their  ethical 
rules  to  things  indifferent.  But  if  the  French  pro- 
testants  were  suspicious  of  fardingales  and  wide 
sleeves,  of  lascivious  curls,  dancing,  and  gay  apparel ; 
if  John  Knox  was  sour  to  the  taste  of  queen  Mary ; 
if  the  manners  of  the  roundheads  were  not  agreeable 
to  the  chevaliers  and  were  ridiculous  to  the  sybarites 
of  Charles  II. ;  and  if  the  American  puritans  also 


88  THE      CHRISTIAN      STATE. 

enacted  blue  laws ;  let  shallow,  progressive  intellect 
be  amused  therefore,  and  pretend  that  what  it  laughs 
at  was  the  religion  of  those  whom  it  ridicules.  It 
remains,  however,  none  the  less  true,  that?  from  the 
time  of  these  men.  and  by  the  influence  of  the  doc- 
trines and  manners  of  these  men  and  their  successors, 
more  than  by  any  other  or  all  other  causes,  the  stand- 
ard of  practical  morality  in  Christendom  has  been 
steadily  and  progressively  elevated,  until  by  the 
spread  of  its  principles  upwards,  or  by  the  effect  of 
shame,  and  fear  of  public  opinion,  it  has  greatly  ame- 
liorated the  manners  of  the  highest  and  most  dissolute 
regions  of  aristocracy.  That  these  influences  are  still 
active  and  increasingly  active ;  and  that  they  have 
their  roots  in  the  same  only  fruitful  soil  of  religious 
principle  is  proved  by  the  many  agencies,  often  in- 
volving great  self  denial,  more  numerous  and  varied 
than  at  any  former  period,  now  in  operation  for  com- 
batting vice  both  in  high  and  tlow  regions,  and  by 
what  until  recently  has  never  been  undertaken,  an 
extensively  organized,  expensive,  and  otherwise  self- 
sacrificing  attempt  of  Christian  men  to  preserve  the 
morality  of  armies  in  the  field,  as  witnessed  in  the 
Crimean  war,  and  more  largely  in  our  own  present 
war  against  the  slaveholders'  rebellion.  The  Refor- 
mation of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  seeds  of  which 
had  long  before  been  scattered  in  every  part  of  Eu- 
rope, was  both  doctrinal  and  ethical,  or  rather  ethical 
by  its  doctrines,  a  morality  having  its  roots  in  reli- 
gion, without  which  it  is  but  pagan  morality,  beautiful 
— and  dead. 

To  Christianity  is  due  not  only  the  awakening  of 
the  common  intellect,  and  the  almost  universal  diffu- 
sion of  education,  as  already  explained,  but  it  is  to 


THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE.  9, 

the  same  living  energy  of  religious  principle  which 
asserted  and  defended  the  reformed  doctrines  that  is 
due  intellectual  freedom,  and  the  possibility  of  the 
triumphs  of  modern  science.  Intellect  itself  would 
never  have  asserted  its  own  freedom  against  eccle- 
siastical ignorance  and  tyranny.  It  not  only  would 
have  lacked  numbers,  but  the  requisite  self-sacrificing 
enthusiasm  if  numbers,  had  not  been  wanting.  Not 
that  scientific  men  lack  enthusiasm  in  their  studies, 
nor  does  science  lack  its  martyrs  by  voluntary  expo- 
sure to  danger.  But,  few  merely  intellectual  men 
would  embrace  the  stake  for  an  opinion.  History 
has  fno  record  of  martyrdoms  of  that  sort.  With- 
out Luther  how  many  Erasmuses  would  have  been 
necessary  to  defend  intellectual  freedom  against  the 
Pope  ?  just  as  many  as  it  would  take  Edward 
Everetts  to  defend  freedom  of  speech  against  the 
slaveholders. 

Having  considered  and  described  some  of  the  re- 
actions of  Christianity,  as  it  has  manifested  itself  in 
the  lower  moiety  of  the  dual  State,  against  the  pro- 
hibitions, corruptions,  and  vices  of  the  double  aristo- 
cracy that  oppressed  it,  reactions  towards  religious, 
moral,  and  intellectual  ends,  towards  the  realization 
of  man  as  a  spiritual  being ;  let  us  look  at  some  of 
the  effects  of  Christianity  incidental  to  this  its  main 
design,  incidental  effects,  not  accidental.  "  The  first 
principles  of  the  gospel  of  Christ,"  the  most  element- " 
ary  teachings  of  Christianity  are  calculated  to  awaken, 
and  do  awaken  even  in  the  lowest,  most  oppressed 
and  dehumanized  classes  of  men,  a  new  consciousness 
of  manhood,  of  worth,  and  of  right  in  relation  to  other 
men.  The  fundamental  position  of  the  pagan  State 
that  the  producing  and  servile  classes  are  but  "live 


90  THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE. 

tools,"  is  met  by  the  fundamental  principle  of  Christ- 
ianity, that,  to  deprive  a  man  made  in  the  image  of 
God,  and  for  whom  Christ  died,  of  his  rights  and  du- 
ties as  a  man,  by  making  him  a  mere  imstrument  for 
the  ends  of  another,  is  the  most  impious  form  of  sac- 
rilege. This  truth,  in  the  form  of  feeling  much 
sooner  than  it  became  a  common  opinion,  silently 
pervaded  all  Christian  minds.  Although  the  aristo- 
cracy, practically  taking  the  pagan  position,  have 
yielded  slow,  unwilling,  and  for  the  most  part,  com- 
pulsory obedience  to  the  Christian  principle,  their 
death-bed  confessions,  manumissions,  charters  of  ex- 
emption and  privilege,  "  for  the  good  of  their  souls," 
prove  that  they  had  only  resisted  hitherto  the  uni- 
versal feeling.  The  doctrine  of  the  rights  of  man 
as  man,  in  relation  to  his  fellow  men,  of  the  essential 
equality  of  men  before  God,  first  distinctly  proclaimed 
and  made  a  power  in  the  world  by  Christianity— 
though  not  always  kept  under  its  control — has  been 
most  prolific  of  political  results.  The  reaction  towards 
civil  freedom  has  always  gone  hand  in  hand  with  that 
towards  religious  freedom.  Side  by  side  with  reli- 
gious heresies,  that  demand  for  freedom  of  soul, 
sprang  up  polititical  heresies,  the  demand  for  freedom 
of  body,  and  exemption  from  unlimited  extortions. — 
In  order  to  these  not  only  a  consciousness  of  right, 
but  concert,  organization,  and  some  degree  of  mental 
activity  and  intelligence  were  necessary.  These  were 
suggested,  and  to  some  extent  furnished  by  Christia- 
nity to  the  very  lowest  classes.  The  new  States  ori- 
ginating out  of  the  fragments  of  the  Western  empire 
were  wholly  after  the  pagan  type,  and  the  great  mass 
of  the  population  were  called,  even  by  the  laws  of 
the  period,  "  bestes  en  park,poissons  en  viviers,  et 


THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE.  91 

oiseaux  en  cage"  But  the  division  of  the  country 
into  parishes,  where  the  same  individuals  were  as- 
sembled weekly  or  oftener,  where  they  heard  the  an- 
nouncement of  great  truths  which  could  not  fail  to 
move  some  minds,  where  they  received  some  instruc- 
tion however  rude,  and  where  they  were  taught  to 
have  faith  in  God  and  the  saints ;  the  original  consti- 
tution of  Church  Communities  not  wholly  lost  sight 
of — here  were  the  natural  germs  and  birth-place  of 
the  CommuneSj  Guilds  and  Free  Cities  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  These  associations  sqmetimes  purchased  their 
Charters,  and  sometimes  extorted  them  by  force  from 
their  overlords  whether  lay  or  ecclesiastical,  and,  how- 
ever they  had  obtained  them,  they  were  always  zeal- 
ous in  their  defence  and  in  adding  to  their  privileges. 
What  some  of  these  privileges  were,  and  what  the 
aristocracy  thought  of  them  may  be  seen  by  an  ex- 
tract or  two  from  the  writings  of  the  time.  "  Com- 
mune !  it  is  a  word  new  and  detestable,  for  see  what 
it  means — the  taxable  people  pay  dues  to  their  lord 
only  once  a  year  ;  (they  were  before  taillables  a  vo- 
lonte,  taxable  at  pleasure)  if  they  commit  any  offence 
it  is  atoned  for  by  a  fixed  (not  arbitrary,  as  before) 
fine ;  and  as  for  the  serfs,  on  whom  it  was  the  cus- 
tom to  lay  contributions  of  money,  they  are  entirely 
exempt  from  them." 

"  What  a  freedom  is  that  of  Cambray  !  neither 
the  Bishop  nor  the  Emperor  can  tax  it ;  no  tribute 
can  be  imposed  upon  it ;  the  militia  cannot  be  called 
out  except  for  the  defence  of  the  city,  and  then  only 
on  condition  that  they  may  return  home  the  same 
day." 

The  same  leaven  was  at  work  in  the  fields  as  well 
as  in  the  towns  and  cities.  Hence  the  frequent 


92  THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE. 

jaqueries  in  France,  and  the  uprising  of  the  villeins 
in  England  and  Germany.  They  had  got  the  hete- 
rodox notion  that  they  ought  not  to  be  bestes  en  park, 
.  and  that  if  they  labored  they  ought  to  have  wages. — 
They  made  the  very  significant  inquiry  : 

"  When  Adam  delv'd  and  Eve  span 
Where  was  then  the  gentleman?" 

But  they  were  not  yet  sufficiently  intelligent  for  or- 
ganization on  a  large  scale,  and  successful  resistance 
to  their  well  trained  and  mail-clad  masters,  and  the 
saints  were  not  found  reliable.  In  France  the  reac- 
tion towards  civil  freedom  was  extremely  slow.  Serf- 
dom was  not  extinct  even  at  the  revolution  ;  and  the 
nominally  free  peasantry  had  suffered  equally  with 
them  up  to  that  time  by  a  most  frivolous,  proud  and 
unfeeling  aristocracy,  lay  and  ecclesiastical,  and  from 
an  always  needy  government,  every  form  and  de- 
gree of  exaction  of  laborious  services,  of  extortion 
of  money,  and  of  waste  of  property  which  heartless 
tyranney  could  invent ;  together,  all  that  human  life 
could  endure,  and  more,  for  thousands  perished  of 
starvation.  Even  the  Communes,  the  free  towns 
and  cities,  gradually  lost  their  privileges,  and  under 
Louis  XIV  were  almost  wholly  deprived  of  them. 
This  part  of  the  nation  had,  however,  thereby,  by  no 
means  lost  its  real  power.  While  the  aristocracy, 
under  the  operation  of  the  general  law,  were  becom- 
ing, politically,  intellectually  and  morally,  degener- 
ate, corrupt,  and  weak,  the  great  middle  class  was  ad- 
vancing, and  in  all  these  respects  becoming  relative- 
ly stronger.  They,  with  the  peasantry,  constituted 
the  "  Third  Estate"  or,  as  it  might  more  properly 


THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE.  93 

be  said,  they  were  the  third,  and  the  peasantry  the 
fourth  Estate.  The  "  Third  Estate,"  constituting 
more  than  ninety-five  per  cent,  of  the  population, 
and,  though  possessing  but  a  small  proportion  of  the 
real  property  of  the  nation,  paying  almost  the  whole 
of  the  taxes  imposed  by  government,  furnishing  by 
its  labor  all  the  income  of  the  Church  and  the  aris- 
tocracy, and  yet  having  almost  no  legal  status  or  in- 
fluence, might  well  ask,  at  length,  and  answer  its 
own  questions  ;  "What  is  the  third  Estate*! 
All.  What  has  it  been  politically  hitherto  ?  Noth- 
ing. What  ought  it  to  be!  Something/'  And 
forthwith  it  proved  itself  to  be  something  by  abolish- 
ing both  king  and  nobility.  The  "  bcstes  en  park" 
too,  the  most  numerous  part  of  the  third  Estate, 
which  the  aristocracy  had  kept  well  enclosed  but 
took  no  pains  to  tame  except  by  hunger  and  stripes, 
wild,  savage  beasts,  furious  as  if  with  the  compressed 
wrath  of  centuries  of  oppression,  and  with  a  terri- 
able  instinct  of  right,  proved  themselves  to  be  "  some- 
thing," namely,  the  instrument  of  God's  justice, 
which  demanded  of  a  single  generation  the  penalty 
of  all  the  vices  and  crimes  (a  horrid  catalogue ! )  of 
the  double  French  aristocracy  from  Clovis  to  Louis 
XVI. 

But  it  is  not  among  the  French  people  that  we 
should  look  for  the  earliest  and  fullest  effects  of 
Christianity  in  relation  to  the  State.  They  make 
excellent  Christians  when  they  are  truly  such.  But 
they  are  naturally  an  intelligent  and  esthetic  peo- 
ple, more  spirituels  than  spiritual.  These  charac- 
teristics, however,  are  not,  alone,  whatever  their  de- 
gree of  development,  a  reliable  basis  for  a  free 
State.  This  opinion  has  already  been  insisted  on, 


94  TilE     CHRISTIAN      STATE. 

and  its  correctness  is  confirmed  by  repeated  exper- 
iences of  this  very  people.  They  have  intelligence, 
they  have  virtues,  morality,  though  not  yet  of  very 
puritanic  type,  but  as  Guizot  has  assured  them,  they 
lack  religion.  There  must  be  a  true  religious  loy- 
alty to  duty,  which  obeys,  and  insists  on  obedience 
in  others  to  the  law  of  the  common  good,  against 
whatever  temptation  of  personal  or  party  advantage. 
France  as  is  plain,  if  we  compare  the  present  with 
the  not  very  distant  past,  is  tending  in  this  direction, 
and  may  by  and  by  excite  the  emulation  instead  of  the 
fears  of  Europe.  She  has  gained  immensely  by  the 
revolution  and  in  consequence  of  the  revolution,  in 
regard  to  religious  and  civil  freedom,  general  educa- 
tion, pecuniary  extortions,  and  the  administration 
of  justice ;  thus  giving  to  the  third  estate  positions 
of  advantage  against  the  aristocracy  of  which  they 
are  not  likely  to  be  deprived.  Not  only  France  but 
the  whole  of  Europe  has  been  greatly  benefitted  by 
the  French  revolution.  It  was  a  severe,  but  most 
necessary  and  healthful  purgation  of  aristocracy  which 
has  since  been,  everywhere  with  few  exceptions,  less 
shameless  in  vices  and  more  prudent  in  its  oppres- 
sions. 

In  France  the  causes  of  the  revolution  and  conse- 
quent advance  towards  civil  liberty  and  the  true  con- 
stitution of  the  State  had  been  slowly  operating  for 
centuries.  They  had  produced  that  great  middle 
class  (bourgeoisie)  which  at  length  demanded — to  be 
"  something  j"  demanded  rights  long  witheld,  and 
relations  to  the  other  classes  befitting  a  Christian 
not  a  pagan  State.  The  immediate  occasion,  how- 
ever, of  the  revolution  was  the  natural  and  just  indig- 
nation and  rightous  anger  of  men  frantic  with  innum- 


THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE.  95 

erable  and  intolerable  tyrannies,  degradations  and  in- 
sults. In  other  States  of  Europe,  where  revolution- 
ary movements  towards  freedom  were  made  earlier, 
and  some  of  them  farther  and  more  successfully  than 
in  France  though  their  causes  were  essentially  the 
same,  namely,  such  as  has  created  a  Christian  peo- 
ple, their  occasions  were  rather  religious  than  politi- 
cal. Civil  freedom  was  demanded  as  the  only  reli- 
able condition  of  religious  freedom.  They  were  not 
accomplished  by  a  sudden  and  irresistible  outburst 
of  passion  as  in  Prance,  but  by  long  years  of  con- 
flict, of  martyrdom,  and  every  lesser  form  of  suffer- 
ing and  self-denial,  sustained  not  only  by  patriotism, 
but  also  and  more  effectually  by  the  energy  of  christ- 
ian  principles. 

How  much  the  result  of  such  movements  depends 
upon  the  absence  or  presence  of  the  religious  motive 
is  well  seen  in  the  revolt  of  the  Low  Countries 
against  Spain.  All  resolved  to  defend  their  charter- 
ed rights,  but  how  soon  the  Walloon  Provinces,  where 
the  question  of  religion  was  scarcely  at  all  involved, 
became  reconciled  to  the  tyrant ;  while,  on  the  con- 
trary, where  in  the  history  of  the  world,  has  been 
exhibited  such  heroic  perseverance  as  in  the  Nether- 
lands?—a  war  of  almost  a  hundred  years  duration  com- 
bined with  organized  murder  and  assassination,  sus- 
tained by  a  handful  of  people  against  the  strongest 
Power  of  Europe,  and  resulting  in  the  attainment  of 
the  ends  for  which  it  was  undertaken,  a  permanent 
political  and  religious  autocracy. 

It  is  instructive  here,  to  compare,  or  rather  to 
contrast  the  character  of  the  people  with  that  of  the 
aristocracy  —  the  aristocracy  as  a  class,  for  there 
were  splendid  exceptions  all  the  more  glorious  for  be- 


96  TIIE     CHRISTIAN      STATE. 

ing  so  few.  While  the  aristocracy,  who  had  risen 
with  the  people  against  the  civil  and  religious  tyranny 
of  the  king,  most  of  them,  were  ready  to  sacrifice 
both  patriotism  and  religion  to  safety  and  self-inter- 
est, (had  their  price),  it  was  the  people,  on  whom 
chiefly  fell  the  hundred  thousand  and  more  martyr- 
doms, the  pecuniary  and  other  burdens  and  suffer- 
ings of  the  war,  that  persevered  to  the  end.  The 
Dutch  revolt  was  a  politico- religious  reaction  of  the 
people  against  the  despotism  of  both  body  and  soul, 
a  movement  in  which,  as  the  religious  end  was  reck- 
oned the  highest,  so  the  religious  motive  was  the 
strongest  and  most  enduring. 

The  English  rebellion  was  a  movement  of  the  same 
kind  as  that  in  Holland  and  owing  to  similar  causes. 
These  causes  existed  earlier  in  England  than  in  Hol- 
land and  of  course  had  been  much  longer  in  opera- 
ation.  The  people  consequently  were,  in  larger  pro- 
portion, under  their  influence.  There  had  been  pro- 
gress made  in  a  hundred  years.  The  people  had  be- 
come more  jealous  and  sensitive,  so  that  less  provo- 
cation than  in  Holland  excited  resistance,  and  much 
less  than  would  have  moved  the  English  people  in 
queen  Mary's  reign.  This  is  properly  reckoned  a 
secular  movement.  Yet  it  is  plain  from  some  of  its 
immediate  causes,  the  points  in  dispute,  the  char- 
acter of  the  actors  on  the  side  of  the  people,  the  re- 
sults aimed  at,  and  all  the  other  phases  of  it,  that, 
while  it  was  political  in  form  and  method,  the  leaven 
which  pervaded  it,  the  vital  power  and  energy  of  it 
were  much  more  religious  than  political,  and  that  its 
tendency  was,  from  the  beginning,  towards  politico-re- 
ligious ends  —  a  better  State  in  order  to  a  better 
Church.  This  was  also  pre-eminently  a  popular 


THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE.  97 

movement,  for  though  some  of  the  aristocracy  joined 
in  it  at  first  from  religious  motives,  they  were  found 
less  reliable  than  even  the  Flemish  nobles.  Indeed 
this  trait  of  unreliability  may  be  said  to  be  charac- 
teristic of  the  class  even  in  matters  of  conscience. 
So  it  was  not  only  in  Holland  and  England,  but  in 
Scotland  in  the  religious  revolution  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  in  France  in  the  religious  disputes  of  that 
and  the  following  century,  and  in  regard  to  the 
ecclesiastical  aristocracy  in  the  English  Revolution. 
Here,  as  in  the  rebellion,  it  was  the  people,  those 
same  puritans  and  their  descendants  the  dissenters, 
who  insisted  on  the  change  of  government. 

These  examples,  to  which  many  more  might  be 
added,  from  more  ancient  and  more  recent  times,  are 
sufficient  to  illustrate  the  methods  by  which  the  low- 
er moiety  of  the  originally  dual  State  has  gradually 
encroached  upon  the  aristocracy  both  secular  and 
ecclesiastical ;  to  show  how  the  duality  has  been  verg- 
ing towards  unity  ;  to  show  how  the  third  estate  which 
began  by  being  u  Nothing,"  has  demanded  more 
and  more  to  be  "  Something,"  and  is  rapidly  tend- 
ing to  become  "All."  The  Christian  aristocracy  is 
the  same  in  kind  as  the  pagan,  and  under  the  same 
laws  of  development,  laws  controlled  in  regard  to 
some  individuals,  but  in  regard  to  the  class,  hardly  at 
all  modified  directly  by  the  influence  of  Christiani- 
ty. This  development  is  in  all  respects  productive 
and  conservative  of  the  most  complete  duality  in  the 
State.  The  secular  power,  whether  government,  or 
nobility,  aims  incessantly  at  increase  of  power,  in- 
crease of  rank,  increase  of  splendor,  gratifications  of 
pride,  luxurious  enjoyrrfent ;  these  are  their  ends  — 
money,  money,  money  is  their  means.  Hence,  mon- 


98  THE      CHRISTIAN      STATE. 

opoly  more  and  more   of  the  sources  of  wealth,  in- 
crease of  taxes,  increase  of  services,  increase  of  rents, 
ever  newly  invented  methods  of  extortion.     The  ten- 
dency  of  ecclesiastical  aristocracy  is  in  the  same  di- 
rection ;   exchange  of  spiritual  power  for  temporal 
power  and  possessions ;  perversion  of  spiritual  religion 
into  a  merchantable  commodity  divisible  into  portions 
of  varying  qualities,  to  be  offered,  with  a  tariff  of 
prices,  in  market,  or  peddled  to  country  customers  ; 
competition  in  all  respects  with  the  secular  aristocra- 
cy; the  same  ends,  and  the  same  means  in  part  different- 
ly acquired,  a  decidedly  more  cunning  skill  at  extor- 
tion—  money,  money,  money.     The    servile   class, 
"  Canaille,"    "  live  tools,"  "  bestes  en  pare,"   con- 
sequently, more  and  more  plundered  and  oppressed, 
remain,  as  far  as  aristocratic  influence  goes,  ignor- 
ant, helpless,  passive,  hopeless,  and  of  course  vicious, 
notwithstanding   plenty  of  pious   exhortations   to  be 
"  content  with  the  condition  in  which  God  has  placed 
them."     The  development  of  the  aristocracy  is  com- 
pleted, or  tends  to   completion,    in  increasing   vice, 
degeneracy  of  body  and  mind,  cowardice,  effeminacy, 
anarchy,  and  return  of  the  State  to  barbarism.  Such 
is  the  law  of  the  development,  such  is  the   tendency 
and  direction  of  it  everywhere,  such   has  been  the 
result  of  it  in  all  pagan  States.     That  such  has   not 
been  the  result  in  Christian  States  is  due  to  the  Gos- 
pel preached  to  the  poors  and  the   consequent   trans- 
formation of  the  dead  and  helpless  mass  of  heathen 
men  into  a  Christian  people,  a  people  no  longer   pas- 
sive, but  antagonistic  to  both   branches  of  the   aris- 
tocracy, reacting  against  them  at  all   points,  against 
their  oppressions,   against   their  extortions,    against 
their  monopolies,   against  their   exemptions,  against 


THE      CHRISTIAN     STATE.  99 

their  false  doctrines,  against  their  commands,  against 
their  prohibitions,  against  their  persecutions,  against 
their  vices  ;  reactions  towards  freedom  from  slavery, 
towards  political  freedom,  towards  religious  freedom, 
towards  intellectual  freedom ;  reacting  by  suffering, 
by  resistance,  by  public  opinion ;  a  people  constantly 
becoming  relatively  stronger  than  the  aristocracy 
physically,  intellectually,  morally,  religiously.  These 
reactions  are  more  or  less  periodical  from  point  to 
point,  sometimes  failing  for  the  time,  to  reach  the 
point  aimed  at,  sometimes  receding  for  a  moment 
from  the  point  attained,  but  on  the  whole  always  ad- 
vancing, always  more  and  more  circumscribing,  re- 
pressing, limiting  aristocratic  power  and  character  in 
all  directions.  More  and  more  rapidly  is  fulfilling 
the  ancient  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness ; 
"  Every  valley  (chasm,  social  fen)  shall  be  filled 
(leveled  up),  and  every  mountain  and  hill  (despotic 
power)  shall  be  brought  low  (humbled),  and  the  crook- 
ed (methods  of  business)  shall  be  made  straight,  and 
the  rough  ways  (of  oppression)  shall  be  made  smooth, 
and  all  flesh  (even  down  to  slaves)  shall  see  the  sal- 
vation of  God." 

Such  is  the  popular  development  under  the  influ- 
ence of  Christianity,  and  in  proportion  to  the  true, 
influence  of  Christianity — as  a  detail  of  the  effect  of 
different  doctrines  would  show — antagonistic  to  the 
aristocratic  development,  and  so  for  a  time  conserva- 
tive of  it,  by  diminishing  its  injustices  and  its  vices, 
and  thus  rendering  it  more  tolerable  and  more  re- 
spectable. To  what  extent — different  in  different 
nations — this  conquest  of  the  people  over  the  aris- 
tocracy, of  Christian  over  pagan  principles  in  the 
organization  of  the  State,  has  reached,  the  argument 


THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE. 

does  not  require  to  be  stated.  It  is  plain,  however, 
from  our  consideration  of  the  causes  and  the  method 
of  it,  that  it  cannot  be  arrested  until  it  reaches  eve- 
rywhere, as  far  as  where  it  now  reaches,  farthest ; 
until  it  reaches  every  remnant  of  unjust  power, 
prerogative,  privilege,  unequal  laws  and  partial  leg- 
islation ;  until,  consequently,  it  reaches  the  abolish- 
ment of  the  aristocratic  class,  as  malum  in  se,  as  in 
its  very  mildest  form  an  unnecessary  burden,  and 
unjust  monopoly,  since  for  practical  purposes  experi- 
ence proves  the  aristocracy  of  character  to  be  superior 
to  that  of  birth. 

That  aristocracy  is  not  a  light  burden  upon  the 
State  which  supports  it  appears  from  a  single  item  of 
expense  as  estimated  by  M.  Legoyt,  chief  of  the  sta- 
tistical bureau  of  Agriculture  in  France  for  1864.- 
The  armies  of  Europe,  in  time  of  peace, "number 
three  millions  nine  hundred  thousand  men  (3,- 
900,000)  at  an  annual  cost  of  seyen  hundred  millions 
of  dollars  ($700,000,000). 

These  same  men  at  labor,  he  estimates,  would  pro- 
duce an  annual  value  of  two  thousand,  three  hundred 
and  forty  millions  ($2,340,000,000).  Europe,  then, 
with  a  population  of  two  hundred  and  sixty-two 
millions  (262,000,000)  is  the  poorer  for  her  armies  by 
the  annual  sum  of  three  thousand  and  forty  millions 
of  dollars  ($3,040,000,000). 

The  army  of  the  United  States,  in  time  of  peace, 
was  sixteen  thousand  men.  By  a  similar  estimate 
as  for  European  armies  the  United  States,  with  a 
population  of  thirty  millions  (30,000,000),  would 
be  the  poorer  for  its  army  by  the  annual  sum  of  a 
little*  less  than  twelve  millions  and  a  half  ($12,- 
500,000).  If  the  population  of  the  United  States 


THB     CHRISTIAN     STATS.  1C1 

were  equal  to  that  of  Europe,  with  army  in  same 
proportion  to  population,  that  is,  16,000  men  to- 
30,000,000  of  people,  the  annual  cost  would  be, 
in  round  numbers,  one  hundred  and  nine  millions 
($109,000,000). 

The  result  of  the  comparison,  then,  is  as  follows  : 

Annual  cost  of  armies  in  Europe  for  a  population 
of  262  millions,  3,040  millions  of  dollars,  -  $3,040,000,000 

Cost  of  army  for  equal  population  in  the  United 
States, $109,000,000 

Difference,  equal  one  item  of  annual  cost  of  sup- 
porting aristocracy,  $2,931,000,000 

I  say  the '  'cost  of  supporting  the  aristocracy."  And 
this  is  true,  for  although  the  governments  pretend 
that  armies  are  for  keeping  the  balance  of  power,  it 
is~  plain  that  if  they  were  all  reduced  in  the  same 
proportion  the  balance  could  be  equally  well  kept. 
But  armies  in  proportion  to  that  of  the  United 
States  could  not  protect  the  aristocracy  against  the 
people. 

Three  thousand  millions  is  a  handsome  annual  sum 
to  pay  for  the  means  and  privilege  of  being  compell- 
ed to  pay  other  and  much  larger  sums,  all  for  the 
common  purpose  of  preserving,  "  conserving"  the 
pagan  dualism  of  both  Church  and  State,  to  the 
exclusion  of  a  Commonwealth. 

Aristocracy  is  very  expensive.  Its  example  also 
is  exceedingly  pernicious,  Its  self  indulgence  and 
rices,  alike  in  both  its  political  and  ecclesiastical 
branches,  when  unrestrained  by  public  opinion,  vices 
which  it  would  often  be  slanderous  of  animals  to  call 
beastly,  as  well  as  its  heartless  and  unjust  extortions 
and  oppressions  of  those  in  its  power,  exhibit  such  aa 


102  THE      CHRISTIAN      STATE. 

entire  lack  of  self-control,  such  absence  of  the  power 
of  self-government,  that,  if  it  is  folly  to  commit  the 
government  of  others  to  those  who  cannot  govern 
themselves,  whore  better  than  in  aristocratic  govern- 
ments can  be  illustrated  the  truth  of  the  adage, — 

Stultum  est  imperare  ceteris  qui  nescit  sibi. 

It  ought  not,  however,  to  be  forgotten,  as  has 
already  been  insisted  on, — for  at  all  times  there  is  a 
tendency  to  forget — that  progress  towards  the  realiz- 
ation of  the  truly  self-governing,  or  Christian  state 
— for  the  terms  ought  to  be  considered  synonymous 
— can  be  successful  and  permanent  only  in  proportion 
to  the  right  development  of  the  people,  a  develop- 
ment not  intellectual  merely  bat  also  moral  and 
religious ;  an  awakening  not  only  of  the  conscious- 
ness of  rights,  but  also  of  the  consciousness  of  duties, 
a  preparation  of  character  that  shall  make  voluntary 
obedience  to  just  laws  more  certain  than  any  com- 
pulsory obedience  to  those  which  are  unjust.  It  is 
idle  to  extemporize  a  free  government  for  a  people 
who  are  not  yet  capable  of  freedom ;  although  in 
some  cases  the  best  and  only  way  in  which  they  can 
fit  themselves  for  it  is  by  attempting  it,  even  when 
sure  to  fail.  As,  at  the  French  Revolution,  the  indis- 
pensable condition  for  the  agricultural  population, 
"  bestes  en  pare"  of  becoming  fit  for  freedom,  was 
deliverance,  at  whatever  cost  of  temporary  anarchy, 
from  the  intolerable  and  brutalizing  oppressions  which 
prevented  all  development  but  that  of  the  just  and 
terrible  wrath  which  destroyed  their  oppressors. 
And  so  in  general,  the  condition  of  becoming  capable 
of  true  freedom  is  emancipation  from  slavery,  and 


THE      CHRISTIAN      STATE.  103 

where  the  masters  will  not  permit  it  to  be  gradual, 
it  is  better  that  it  should  be  sudden  than  not  to  be  at 
all.  But  if  such  convulsions  are  sometimes  the  con- 
dition, or  the  indication  of  progress  in  the  right 
direction,  the  conclusion  already  arrived  at  is  not 
thereby  affected,  that  only  an  intelligent  and  Chris- 
tian people,  and  that  too  a  people  much  more  than 
nominally  Christian,  is  capable  of  self-government, 
and  so  fit,  to  govern  the  State.  A  people  immoral 
without  ignorance  ;  or  one  ignorant  without  immoral- 
ity ;  and  especially  one  both  immoral  and  ignorant, 
would  each  illustrate  the  folly  of  committing  the 
government  of  the  State  to  men  not  competent  to 
govern  themselves.  The  result  of  entrusting  the 
government  of  a  community  to  a  democratic  majority 
of  ignorance  and  vice  is  beautifully  exhibited  in  the 
city  of  New  York,  and  has  often  been,  in  other  places, 
before.  If  government  by  a  vicious  but  intelligent 
aristocracy  is  stultum,  that  by  such  a  democracy  is, 
if  possible,  stultius. 

The  fault  of  the  aristocratic  government  is  not  that 
it  governs  the  people,  but  that  it  misgoverns  them; 
that  being,  in  theory,  an  institution  in  order  to  jus- 
tice, it  is  in  practice  in  order  to  injustice.  The  crime 
of  aristocracy  is  that  it  always  gives  the  people  a 
worse  government  than  they  are  capable  of;  is  that 
it  tends  and  aims  to  make  them  incapable  of  self- 
government.  It  always  tends  to  the  worse  and  not 
to  the  better.  All  better  has  to  be  demanded  imper- 
atively, and  often  to  be  extorted  by  the  people.  All 
true  government  is  for  the  people,  but  the  aristo- 
cratic government,  in  proportion  to  its  power  to  do 
so,  makes  the  people  subservient  to  its  own  ends,  or 
rather  to  the  ends  of  the  individuals  on  the  aristo- 


104  THE      CHRISTIAN      STATE. 

cratic  side  of  the  duality.  The  relation  of  the 
parties  is  essentially  and  always,  so  long  as  it  exists, 
antagonistic  ;  were  it  not  so,  were  the  government 
aiming  only  at  the  true  ends  of  government,  there 
would  be  a  spontaneous  and  willing  progress  of  it 
towards  greater  freedom  with  less  expense  as  fast  as 
the  people  became  capable  of  it,  with  constant  efforts 
to  make  them  more  capable  of  it.  That  this  is  not 
so  the  facts  of  all  history  and  the  proverbs  of  all  lan- 
guages sufficiently  prove.  That  the  animus  of  the 
caste  remains  always  the  same  so  long  as  it  retains  a 
breath  of  life  is  demonstrated  by  what  is  going  on  in 
our  own  country.  There  never  was,  in  its  origin 
and  character,  so  contemptible  an  aristocracy  as  that 
of  our  Southern  States,  nor  one  so  monstrous  and 
shameless  in  its  avowed  purposes  ;  yet  as  soon  as 
the  slaveholders  proclaimed  the  true  orthodox  doctrine 
of  the  whole  fraternity  ancient  and  modern,  the  gen- 
uine pagan  duality,  slavery  the  corner  stone  of  the 
State,  the  aristocracy  of  Europe,  though  most  of  them, 
for  some  time  past,  have  "  purged  and  lived  cleanly, 
as  noblemen  should,"  and  though  they  have  been 
filled  with  pious  horror  at  the  toleration  of  slavery 
by  republicans,  suddenly  became  by  "  tellow  feeling 
wond'rous  kind  "  and  sympathetic  towards  their  new- 
ly found  brethren,  especially  as  they  are  in  rebellion 
against  the  natural  enemy  of  the  caste — a  republican 
government.  That  their  late  decency  was  due  to  the 
coercion  of  public  opinion,  and  was  only  skin-deep,  is 
plain  from  their  extravagant  joy  at  the  prospect  of 
putting  an  end  to  popular  encroachments  by  the  de- 
Itruction  of  the  American  government.  What  a 
Godsend  were  it  that  they  should  be  able  to  say  : — 
See !  Republics,  even  under  the  most  favorable  cir- 


THE     CHRISTIAN     STATE  105 

cumstances,  are  a  failure,  and  will  never  again  be 
tried.  This  failure  is  their  dearest  hope,  and  in 
order  to  accomplish  it  they  resort  freely  to  the  char- 
acteristic means  of  hatred  and  cowardice — slander ; 
for  never,  since  pandemonium  was  opened,  has  there 
come  forth  from  it  so  foul  a  group  of  liars  as  are  the 
leaders  of  English  aristocratic  opinion.  It  is  a  pity 
to  spoil  such  delightful  expectations,  but  they  ought 
to  reflect  that,  if  we  fail, — fail,  however,  we  shall 
not — through  failure  to  have  expelled  all  the  poison 
of  aristocratic  leaven  at  the  beginning,  the  next  re- 
publics will  probably  thereby  be  wiser.  In  the  mean 
time  whether  we  succeed  or  fail,  through  failure  to 
comply  with  some  of  the  conditions  of  success,  is  it 
likely  that  the  movement  which  has  been  gathering 
strength  for  a  thousand  years  will  therefore  be  ar- 
rested, or  even  retarded  ? 

"  He  measured  a  thousand  cubits,  and  he  brought 
me  through  the  waters ;  the  waters  were  up  to  the 
ancles.  Again  he  measured  a  thousand,  and  brought 
me  through  the  waters ;  the  waters  were  to  the 
knees.  Again  he  measured  a  thousand,  and  brought 
me  through  ;  the  waters  were  to  the  loins.  After- 
ward he  measured  a  thousand ;  and  it  was  a  river 
that  I  could  not  pass  over :  for  the  waters  were 
risen,  waters  to  swim  in,  a  river  that  could  not  be 
passed  over."  This  is  the  Divine  Stream  whose 
waters  are  risen,  and  are  rising,  cleansing  waters, 
washing  away  both  falshood  and  injustice,  life-giving 
waters,  for  <c  everything  shall  live  whither  the  river 
cometh  ;"  and  what  obstructions  mightier  than  those 
already  removed  by  it  can  now  impede  its  flow — that 
it  should  not  reach  all  nations?  "  And  by  the  river 
upon  the  bank  thereof,  on  this  side.,  and  on  that  side, 


106  THE      CHRISTIAN     STATE. 

shall  grow  all  trees,  and  the  fruit  thereof  shall  be  for 
meat,  and  the  leaf  thereof  for  medicine." 

The  prophet  has  most  accurately  described  the 
process  and  the  results  of  the  realization  of  the  two 
Christian  ideas  of  Church  and  State.  Slowly  and 
gradually  from  point  to  point  swell  and  rise  the 
Christian  wafers  until  they  become  a  mighty  river 
which  cannot  be  passed  over,  breasted,  resisted  by 
human  power;  and  on  this  side,  and  on  that  side,  of 
the  all-quickening  and  fertilizing  stream,  spring  up 
countless  blessings ;  on  this  side,  spiritual,  on  that 
side,  temporal,  a  full  supply  for  all  the  true  wants, 
and  a  remedy  for  all  the  diseases  of  humanity. 

Thatj  in  many  Christian  nations,  these  results  are 
hitherto  most  imperfectly  attained ;  in  a  small  num- 
ber, still  quite  partially ;  in  the  most  advanced,  very 
incompletely,  need  not  be  denied.  But  this,  in  the 
mind  of  one  who  has  carefully  studied  the  past,  and 
comprehends  the  method  of  Christian  principles,  will 
not  at  all  weaken  his  confidence  that  the  progress  and 
conquests  of  Christianity,  its  power  of  modifying 
political  relations,  are  not  to  cease  until  there  is  re- 
alized in  all  Christian  nations  a  successfully  self  gov- 
erning Commonwealth  as  the  ultimate  form  of  the 
State, — a  State  whose  aim  shall  be  not  national 
wealth  without  regard  to  its  distribution,  but  national 
independence,  and  provision,  for  all  its  citizens , 
of  the  conditions  and  opportunities  of  well-being, 
physical,  intellectual,  spiritual,  befitting  a  creature 
made  in  the  image  of  God. 


CHAPTER    V. 

THE    AMERICAN    REPUBLIC. 

"That  is  properly  said  to  be  the  chief  end  or  happiness  of  a  thing 
which  doth  raise  its  nature  to  the  utmost  perfection  of  which  it  is 
capable,  according  to  its  rank  and  kind." 

"It  is  the  business  of  art  first  to  choose  some  determinate  end 
and  purpose,  and  to  select  those  parts  of  nature,  (those  means) 
and  those  only,  which  conduce  to  that  end,  avoiding,  with  most 
religious  exactness,  the  intermixture  of  anything  which  would 
contradict  it. ' ' 

The  founders  of  the  American  Republic  proposed 
to  themselves  a  determinate  end,  namely,  to  realize  a 
true  State,  and  to  raise  its  nature  to  the  utmost  per- 
fection of  -which  a  State  is  capable.  They  also 
adopted  the  indispensable  form  of  a  perfect  State,  a 
self-governing  commonwealth.  As  statesmen  they 
aimed  at  the  very  highest  end.  But  did  they  select 
those  means,  all  the  means  which  conduce  to  that 
end ;  or  did  they  avoid  with  religious  exactness  the 
intermixture  of  anything  which  would  contradict  it  ? 
They  did  neither. 

Whether  the  true  ends  of  a  State  are  to  be  realized 
or  not  realized  depends  upon  two  things;  first  its 
CONSTITUTION,  which,  in  this  country,  means  the 
organization,  or  distribution  of  the  powers,  of  the 
GOVERNMENT,  and  the  fundamental  laws  which  are 


108  THE    AMERICAN    REPUBLIC. 

to  control  its  legislation;  second,  the  character •, 
intellectual,  moral,  religious,  of  the  people  to  be 
governed. 

It  seems  to  have  been  the  opinion  of  the  founders 
of  the  Republic  that  the  constitution  of  the  govern- 
ment itself  is  the  essential  thing,  and  indeed  more 
than  that,  that  the  right  organization  of  the  govern- 
ment is  the  all-sufficient  thing ;  that  its  several 
powers  may  be  such,  and  so  skilfully  balanced,  that 
no  one  or  more  of  them  can  ever  predominate  over 
the  others  so  as  to  disturb  the  equilibrium.  Perhaps 
the  influence  of  no  one  individual  was  so  great  in  de- 
termining the  "  balance  of  powers  "  in  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States  and  in  those  of  the  sever- 
al States — for  they  are  nearly  all  after  the  same 
type  in  this  respect — as  that  of  John  Adams.  How 
highly  he  estimated  the  importance  of  the  proper 
distribution  of  powers  ("an  independent  executive 
pow  er,  three  independent  branches  in  the  legislature, 
and  an  independent  judicial  department")  may  be  seen 
in  his  u  History  of  Republics ;"  in  which  the  opinion 
is  everywhere  implied,  and  often  expressed,  that  any 
of  the  ancient  Republics,  and  of  those  of  the  middle 
ages,  might  have  been  successful  and  permanent  on 
the  single  condition  of  the  proper  arrangement  of 
independent  powers  in  the  government  so  as  to  "  form 
an  equilibrium  between  the  one,  the  few,  and  the 
many."  He  even  intimated  that  on  this  condition  a 
Republic  might  exist  among  highwaymen.  He 
thought  that  the  character  of  the  people  depends 
upon  this  constitution  of  government,  that,  in  the 
struggle  to  keep  the  equilibrium,  knaves  themselves 
might  in  time  be  made  honest  men  !  !  According 
to  this  view  of  the  subject  a  government  may  be  so 


THE     AMERICAN     REPUBLIC.  109 

constructed  as  to  be  a  self-moving  and  self-adjusting 
machine  the  product  of  whose  operation  shall  be  just 
laws  and  good  men  !  !  ! 

That  other  statesmen  of  the  period  coincided  in 
opinion  with  Mr.  Adams  on  this  point  may  be  infer- 
red from  the  great  care  bestowed  upon  the  machin- 
ery of  government  in  all  the  Constitutions  of  the 
time  both  State  and  national ;  and  from  the  compar- 
ative lack  of  care  in  the  same  Constitutions  in  re- 
gard to  the  fundamental  principles,  organic  laws, 
which  are  to  direct  and  control  the  legislation  of  the 
governments.  Their  error. was  not  in  attaching  too 
much,  but  too  exclusive  importance  to  the  balance 
of  powers,  u  the  equilibrium  of  the  one,  the  few  and 
the  many."  Let  us  suppose  that  this  part  of  the 
Constitution  which  they  labored  so  carefully  is  the 
best  possible,  yet  it  is  plain  that  it  could  not  consti- 
tute a  permanently  successful  government  without 
regard  to  the  character  of  the  people  to  be  governed, 
and  that  of  the  men  performing  the  functions  of  gov- 
ernment. To  suppose  that  several  antagonist  inter- 
ests purely  selfish  can  be  so  nicely  balanced  against 
each  other  as  to  remain  permanently  in  equilibrium 
is  as  absurd  in  politics  as  a  perpetual  motion  in 
mechanics.  If  the  faith  of  our  fathers  in  equilibrium 
did  not  quite  reach  to  this  point,  yet  it  is  evident 
that  their  confidence  in  it  made  them  less  careful  in 
regard  to  the  other  department  of  the  Constitutions 
both  as  to  admitting  into  them  principles  which 
ought  to  have  been  excluded,  and  in  failing  to  in- 
clude those  which  ought  to  have  been  inserted. 

What  is,  more  definitely,  the  purpose  of  a  written 
Constitution?  The  purpose  is  plainly  two-fold  as  al- 
ready intimated.  First,  To  determine  what  may  be 

10 


110  THE    AMERICAS    REPUBLIC. 

called  the  mechanism  of  the  government ;  and 
second,  to  limit  and  direct  the  action  of  the  govern- 
ment. The  constitution  in  its  legislative  depart- 
ment should  be  both  prohibitory  and  mandatory,  and 
such  seems  to  have  been  its  twofold  aim  in  all  our 
American  Constitutions.  But  the  "  determinate 
ends  "  both  of  the  prohibitory  and  mandatory  claus- 
es were  indistinctly  and  partially  conceived.  There 
is  an  attempt  to  realize  some  of  the  ends  of  the 
State  but  apparently  without  the  question  ever  hav- 
ing been  asked — what  are  the  true  ends  and  all  the 
ends  for  which  the  State  is  instituted  ?  or  rather  the 
question — what  is  THE  END  of  the  State  ?  There 
is  in  all  our  Constitutions  an  evident  looking  back  at 
the  imperfections  of  other  and  older  nations,  and  an 
attempt  to  avoid  as  many  of  them  as  were  seen  to  be 
imperfections.  That  is,  the  METHOD  is  by  exclu- 
sion and  avoidance  of  evil  rather  than  one  which  aims 
to  realize  a  positive  and  complete  idea 

All  good  possible  for  man,  is  comprised  under  the 
forms  of  spiritual,  intellectual,  social  and  physical 
well-being.  The  first  is  by  means  of  religion,  of 
which  the  Christian  Church  is  the  administrator. 
The  true  relation  of  the  Church  to  the  State  is  that 
of  an  independent  ally,  which,  while  it  seeks  exclu- 
sively its  own  spiritual  ends,  does,  incidentally,  pro- 
mote and  that  most  efficiently  the  ends  of  the  State. 
It  is,  in  fact,  as  already  shown,  the  indispensable 
condition  for  the  State,  of  the  realization  of  its 
highest  ends,  yet  so  that  the  State  must  neither  con- 
trol nor  subsidise  it  but  only  invite  its  influence. 
This  condition  of  success  for  the  State  is,  however, 
always  within  its  reach  since  the  Church  is  always 
ready  to  enter  upon  the  alliance.  All  the  Ameri- 


THE    AMERICAN    REPUBLIC.  Ill 

can  Constitutions  recognize  this  true  relation  of 
Church  and  State  and  are  so  far  right.  The  pur- 
pose of  the  State,  then,  in  distinction  or  separation 
from  that  of  the  Church  —  a  purpose  which  includes 
all  that  the  true  State  can  propose  to  itself —  is  to 
provide  for  all  its  citizens  the  conditions  of  the  three 
other  forms  of  human  well-being. 

It  is  plain  that  the  cultivation,  the  realization  of 
his  intellect  is  a  high  end  for  man,  that  it  is  the  right 
and  the  duty  of  all  men,  and  desirable  for  all  men, 
and  not  for  the  few  exclusively  in  order  to  the  guid- 
ance and  control  of  the  many,  according  to  the  doc- 
trine of  aristocratic  States ;  not  the  division  of  men 
into  two  castes,  the  one  to  use  only  its  brain,  the 
other  only  its  muscles.  .  It  does  not,  however,  be- 
long to  the  present  subject  to  eulogize  education  as 
the  condition  of  intellectual  well-being  for  the  indi- 
vidual. This  form  of  well-being  the  true  State 
would  aim  to  place  within  the  reach  of  all  its  citi- 
zens. But  education,  to  some  extent,  and  a  cer- 
tain amount,  a  pretty  large  amount,  of  intelligence, 
in  at  least  the  great  majority  of  the  people,  is  plainly 
the  condition  sine  qua  non  of  a  successful  democra- 
cy in  the  American  sense  of  the  word.  Even  the 
requisite  moral  character  universally  present  in  a 
large  ignorant  class  would  not  of  itself  protect  the 
State,  since  ignorance  is  none  the  less  easily  duped 
for  being  honest.  Both  ignorance  and  vice,  and  es- 
pecially a  combination  of  the  two  are  infallible  hot- 
beds of  demagogueism ;  for  where  these  exist  Sey- 
mours and  Woods  make  their  appearance  as  inevit- 
ably as  buzzards  find  out  carrion  or  toadstools  the 
dung-heap.  Since  such  allies  of  Satan  can  never 
be  wholly  extinguished  in  a  Republic,  the  only  poa- 


112  THE    AMERICAN    REPUBLIC. 

sible  way  by  which  a  free  State  can  avoid  a  return  to 
some  form  of  aristocratic  duality  is  by  such  a  diffu- 
sion of  intelligence,  morality  and  Christianity,  as 
shall  deprive  demagogues  of  the  only  means  by  which 
they  could  seriously  endanger,  or  pervert  the  true 
ends  of  the  government. 

Next  after  the  true  influence  of  Christianity,  in- 
telligence is,  then,  plainly,  the  fundamental  condition 
of  the  free  State.  It  is  the  absence  of  this  in  the 
great  body  of  the  people,  permitting  the  combination 
of  intelligence  and  wealth  in  the  hands  of  a  few,  in 
which  the  dual  State  originates,  a  form  which  it 
will  always  retain,  or  towards  which  it  will  always 
gravitate,  so  long  as  this  character  of  the  people  ex- 
ists. The  statesmen  of  our  revolutionary  period 
seem  to  have  had  a  general  notion  or  feeling  that 
an  intelligent  people  was  necessary  to  the  success  of  the 
governments  they  were  instituting,  yet  their  opinion 
on  this  point,  if  opinion  it  can  be  called,  was  vague 
and  indefinite.  They  were  by  no  means  wholly  free 
of  an  aristocratic  leaven  which  led  them  to  suppose 
that  the  poorer  and  more  ignorant  must  be  under  a 
sort  of  controling  patronage  and  influence  of  the 
wealthy  and  enlightened.  The  comparatively  gener- 
al and  high  intelligence  of  the  New  England  Colon- 
ies originated  mainly  in  religions  considerations. 
It  was  intended  as  a  defence  rather  against  ecclesias- 
tical than  political  despotism.  But  the  early  consti- 
tutions were  the  work  of  statesmen,  who  were  think- 
ing more  of  the  mechanism  of  the  government  than 
of  the  character  of  the  people  to  be  self-governed. 
These  Constitutions,  accordingly,  provide  very  im- 
perfectly against  the  dangers  of  popular  ignorance. 
In  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  there  is  no 


THE     AMERICAN     REPUBLIC.  113 

provision  whatever,  and  no  demand  for  the  general 
diffusion  of  intelligence.  Congress  is  permitted  to 
i:  promote  the  progress  of  science  and  useful  arts  " 
by  copy-rights ,  and  patent-rights  —  methods  which 
may  produce  some  good  machinery,  and  many  very 
poor  books,  but  which  are  powerless  against  the  dan- 
gers of  an  ignorant  populace.  It  may  be  said  that 
this  was  the  more  appropriate  duty  of  the  States. 
That  may  be  true  in  regard  to  the  details  of  popular 
education.  But  what  if  the  constitution,  which  was 
made  for  the  people,  and  aims  u  to  promote  the  gen- 
eral wellfare,  and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty," 
both  for  the  present  and  for  the  future,  had  said,  for 
instance,  that  a  condition  of  voting  for  electors  of 
President  should  be  the  ability  to  read  and  write — 
what  a  stimulus  this  would  have  been  to  all  parties 
in  all  the  States  to  have  all  their  friends  educated  at 
least  up  to  that  point  instead  of  promoting  ignorance 
and  propagating  darkness  as  the  material  by  which, 
and  the  medium  in  which,  demagogues  can  most  suc- 
cessfully accomplish  their  purposes. 

Or,  if  Congress  had  been  required,  instead  of  per- 
mitted, "  to  establish  uniform  rules  of  naturalization" 
with  such  conditions  as  would  have  excluded  the 
putrid  masses  of  foreign  ignorance  and  vice  from  the 
polls — what  disgrace  and  dangers  of  the  present  time 
should  we  have  escaped,  dangers  which  may  yet,  if 
not  guarded  against,  prove  fatal  to  the  Republic. 

So  in  the  State  Constitutions  the  articles  relating 
to  education  are  in  many  of  them  either  a  general 
declaration  that  it  is  a  good  thing  and  ought  to  be 
encouraged,  or  little  more  than  a  permission  or  ex- 
hortation to  the  legislature  to  provide  for  it.  They, 
most  of  them,  fail  in  not  requiring  definite  and  effi- 


114  TUB    AMERICAN     REPUBLIC. 

cient  legislation  for  the  instruction  of  all  the  children 
of  the  State.  They  also  fail  greatly  in  not  making 
it  obligatory  upon  every  child,  under  heavy  penalty 
to  be  imposed  upon  the  parent  or  guardian,  to  re- 
ceive the  instruction  provided  for  him — for  a  free 
State  has  the  same  right  and  duty  to  forbid  ignorance 
that  it  has  to  forbid  crime,  and  must  forbid  it  or 
exclude  it  from  political  relations  under  the  most 
imperative  law  of  self  preservation  ;  and  it  is  plain 
that  this  self-defence  is  still  more  necessary  for  the 
United  States  than  for  any  particular  State.  Each 
State  is  under  the  protection  of  the  United  States, 
which  is  bound  to  guarantee  to  it  a  republican  form 
of  government ;  but  if  the  lowest  products  of  Euro- 
pean despotisms,  and  the  contents  of  their  general 
jail  deliveries  are  to  be  courted  by  our  political  par- 
ties, and  hold  the  balance  of  power  between  them — 
the  cesspool  of  demagogueism,  corrupt  and  corrupting 
all  that  comes  in  contact  with  it — who  shall  guaran- 
tee to  the  United  States  itself  a  Republican  form  of 
government,  or  what  shall  preserve  it  from  disinte- 
gration when  the  bond  of  intelligent  patriotism  which 
makes  it  E  pluribus  unum  no  longer  exists  ?  The 
Constitution  and  Laws  of  the  United  States  are 
altogether  inefficient  against  this  insidious,  and — so 
long  as  our  naturalization  laws  remain  as  at  present — 
ever  increasing  danger ;  and  the  State  laws,  even  in 
most  of  the  free  States,  are  very  imperfect.  The 
execution  of  the  laws  is  still  more  imperfect  than  the 
legislation.  In  the  free  States,  however,  public 
opinion  on  this  subject  is  becoming  more  awake  and 
more  correct,  and  the  laws  are  supplemented  largely 
and  liberally  by  the  action  of  Christian  and  patriotic 
individuals.  Let  us  hope  that  even  with  politicians, 


THE    AMERICAN     REPUBLIC.  115 

and  in  legislatures,  the  time  is  coming  when  the  fun- 
damental interests,  the  honor  and  safety  of  the 
Republic,  will  take  precedence  of  party  successes. 

In  the  slave  States,  where,  whatever  may  be  their 
written  constitutions  and  the  pretentious  Declarations 
of  Rights  annexed  to  them,  the  governments  are 
aristocracies,  dualisms  after  the  pagan  type,  it  is 
the  great  masses  of  ignorant,  and  therefore  easily 
duped  and  excited,  "  white  trash,"  which  are  the 
condition,  the  means,  the  very  pabulum  of  the  re- 
bellion, the  "live  tools"  fit  and  efficient  for  the 
ambitious  schemes  of  the  slaveholders.  Such  "  tools" 
northern  demagogues,  politicians  by  trade,  and  or- 
ganized liars  by  profession,  are  preparing,  to  the  extent 
of  their  power,  aided  by  European  aristocrats,  and 
the  unwatchfulness  of  hpnost  men,  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  their  schemes.  This  most  pestiferous 
spawn  of  pandemonium  can  never  be  got  rid  of  except 
by  removing  the  dunghill  in  which  it  is  hatched.  So 
long  as  the  balance  of  power  at  the  polls  is  held  by 
mere  voting  tools  controlled  not  only  by  liars  and 
money,  but  by  important  offices  promised  to  their 
favorites  by  contending  parties,  and,  in  consequence, 
the  wickedest  and  meanest  of  men  are  both  makers 
and  interpreters  of  the  laws,  can  anything  be  more 
absurd  than  to  expect  the  true  ends  of  a  free  govern- 
ment to  be  realized  ?  The  unassimilated  masses  must 
be  made  to  partake  of  the  proper  life  of  the  State  or 
else  be  excluded  from  the  political  body.  But  ex- 
clusion— except  as  a  probation  and  stimulus  to  self- 
qualification — is  contradictory  to  the  idea  of  the 
self-governing  State,  and  might  in  the  end  prove 
more  dangerous  than  the  evil  it  was  intended  to 
remedy,  as  the  South  may  find  hereafter  if  it  shall 


116  THE     AMERICAN     REPUBLIC. 

attempt  to  exclude  the  now  emancipated  negroes  from 
political  rights.  Fortunately  the  interests  of  all 
except  the  demagogues  themselves  are  one  with 
the  true  ends  of  the  State :  and  the  proportion  of 
American-born  citizens  and  of  intelligent  foreigners 
who  are  no  longer  led  blindly  by  party  names  and 
countersigns,  and  the  dictation  of  party  leaders  in 
order  to  personal  advantage  to  themselves  of  which 
the  fewest  of  their  followers  can  partake,  is  evidently 
on  the  increase.  The  number  of  those  who  can  be 
successfully  duped  by  organized  systems  of  lying, — 
were  it  not  for  constant  new  importations  of  ignor- 
ance,— is  becoming  annually  less.  The  Church,  the 
clergy — with  the  exception  of  a  few  aristocratic 
conservatives — in  the  free  States,  are  diffusing  a 
truer  light,  and  more  of  a  salt  which  has  not  lost  its 
savor.  Let  all  Christian  and  patriotic  men,  both 
governors  and  governed,  aim  to  increase  the  number 
of  those  who  truly  partake  of  the  intelligent  and  mor- 
al life  of  the  self-governing  State,  that  our  Republic 
may  manifest  itself  as  an  organized  and  organific 
unity  in  contrast  with  all  lifeless  dual  structures, 
filling  with  fear  if  not  with  shame  the  malevolent  and 
lying  aristocrats  who  are  watching  and  working 
eagerly  for  our  failure. 

These  are,  doubtless,  very  trite  and  obvious  con- 
siderations and  exhortations,  but  that  there  is  still 
abundant  occasion  for  them,  that  our  Constitutions 
and  Laws  are  very  imperfect  and  inefficient  in  regard 
to  this  fundamental  condition  of  a  successful  self-gov- 
erning State,  AN  INTELLIGENT  PEOPLE,  is  apparent 
from  the  fact  that  after  almost  a  hundred  years  of 
self-government,  in  nearly  every  State,  and  of  course 
in  all  national  elections,  the  balance  of  power  at  the 


THE     AMERICAN    RERUBLIC.  117 

polls  is  held  by  men,  who,  though  they  have  no 
interest  in  being  deceived,  are  through  sheer  igno- 
rance, the  mere  tools  of  demagogues.  Add  to  this 
mass  of  honest  dupes  the  openly  bribed  brutish 
horde  which  in  the  cities  and  large  towns  the  dema- 
gogues have  managed  to  make  citizens,  and  we  can 
understand  how  it  is,  that  there  are  found  in  all  our 
legislatures,  from  the  Senate  of  the  United  States 
down,  so  many  men  whose  natural  places,  both  in 
point  of  intelligence  and  moral  character,  are  village 
bar-rooms  and  city  hells,  from  which,  in  fact,  they 
have  been  transplanted.  Alas !  how  far  are  we 
still  from  realizing  the  idea  of  our  representative 
Republics,  according  to  which  the  ballot  is  to  evolve 
the  highest  practical  intelligence  and  morality,  the 
most  developed  reason  of  the  communities  in  which 
it  is  used  !  In  how  few  communities  is  this  end 
aimed  at,  or  even  thought  of,  or  indeed  any  other  end 
by  large  numbers  of  voters  except  the  success  of 
''our  party."  Notwithstanding  incessant  talk  and 
endless  declamation,  and  some  legislation,  on  the 
subject,  there  never  has  been  anywhere  an  efficient 
plan,  a  determined  purpose  to  require,  to  insist  on, 
and  therefore  to  make  intelligent  voters.  Let  us 
hope  that,  if  we  do  not,  in  the  present  contest,  perish 
through  lack  of  having  protected  this  vital  point, 
we  shall  be  found  capable  at  least  of  learning  by 
experience. 

But  let  us  not  trust  wholly  to  intelligence.  The 
other  vital  point,  the  requisite  moral  and  religious 
character,  also  still  needs  most  strenuous  defence ; 
and  this  the  more,  because,  besides  the  natural  gravi- 
tation of  men  towards  the  worse,  there  are,  even  in 
this  country,  men  of  learning  and  influence  willing 


118  THE     AMERICAN     REPUBLIC. 

to  entrust  everything  to  mere  godless  intellect :  men 
who  believe  only  in  science  ;  who  "  find  no  provision 
in  the  nervous  system  for  the  improvement  of  the 
moral!  save  indirectly  through  the  intellectual." 
The  scientific  anatomist  does  not  find  Christianity 
anywhere  in  the  nervous  system,  even  the  skilfulest 
chemistry  cannot  detect  it  there  —  how  unfortunate  ! 
hence  the  inevitable  conclusion  that  intellect  is  the 
only  "  progressive  agent."  That  many  in  Europe, 
in  the  pride  of  intellect,  arrogant  from  their  success 
as  men  of  science,  and  forming  their  opinions  of 
Christianity  by  what  they  have  observed  of  the  ef- 
fect of  State  Religions,  especially  upon  the  adminis- 
trators of  them,  should  doubt  its  power  to  aid  the 
progress  of  society  in  the  right  direction  is  a  fact  not 
difficult  to  account  for.  That  Christianity  is  dishon- 
ored in  this  country  also,  at  least  in  many  parts  of 
it,  by  men  bearing  its  narnej  is  past  disputing.  It  is, 
however,  none  the  less  true,  and  undeniably  so,  that 
practical  morality  has,  always,  and  everywhere,  been 
in  proportion  to  the  presence  of  true  Christianity  : 
in  proportion  to  progressive  intellect  never,  any- 
where, in  the  absence  of  Christianity.  It  is  none 
the  less  true  that  the  ends  of  the  State  have  been 
realized  in  proportion  as  its  citizens  have  believed  in 
and  obeyed  the  laws  of  Christianity.  It  may  be  un- 
lucky that  no  •"  provision  for  the  improvement  of 
the  moral  "  was  put  into  the  nervous  system,  but, 
in  the  absence  of  that  forgotten  or  lost  organ,  Chris- 
tianity is  plainly  the  only  efficient  substitute  for  it. 
Universal  intelligence  is  not  needed  in  the  free  State 
in  order  "  indirectly  "  to  promote  morality,  but  to 
enable  the  people  to  defend  themselves  against  the 
sophistries  and  organized  lying  of  immoral,  well- 


THE    AMERICAN     REPUBLIC.  119 

progressed  and  in  the  same  degree  wicked  intellect. 

In  regard  to  social  well-being  as  determined  by 
civil  and  political  rights  and  relations,  on  condition  of 
their  proper  use,  there  is  perhaps  some  reason  for 
the  stereotype  boast  of  declaimers  that  we  have  the 
"  best  government  under  heaven."  This  boast  is 
true  practically,  however,  only  of  the  governments 
of  some  of  the  free  States,  or  if  of  all  of  them  it  is 
so  only  because  all  other  governments  are  exceeding- 
ly bad.  The  governments  of  the  slave  States,  on 
the  other  hand,  have  been  the  worst  under  heaven , 
producing,  as  their  natural  and  necessary  result, 
three  classes  of  men  of  great  political  inequality,  but 
morally  about  equally  worthless,  a  small  purse-proud, 
vulgar,  semibarbarous  aristocracy ;  large  masses  of 
ignorant  and  vicious  "poor  whites  ;"  and  slaves,  the 
possession  of  one  of  the  two  other  classes,  and  the  curse 
of  both. 

The  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  by  recog- 
nizing and  defending  the  legal  character  and  claims 
of  slavery,  made  itself  parliceps  crimmis  with  the 
South,  a  crime  for  which,  with  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence still  in  the  mouths  of  its  authors  there 
never  can  be  made  an  apology.  The  only  extenua- 
tion is  in  their  belief  that  slavery  was  soon  to  die  a 
natural  death.  How  great  a  crime  it  was  against 
the  victims  of  it,  and  against  the  State,  to  deprive 
millions  of  men  of  their  humanity  —  blotting  out 
the  brain  of  the  slave  as  well  as  robbing  his  muscles 
-  both  in  those  who  insisted  on  committing  it,  and 
in  those  who  consented  with  them,  we  are  likely  to 
learn  by  the  legitimate  and  just  consequences  of  it, 
in  part  already  inflicted  by  a  retributive  Providence 
upon  both  parties,  and  "  His  Hand  is  stretched  out 


120  THE    AMERICAN    REPUBLIC. 

still."  Never  has  the  displeasure  of  God  at  viola- 
tion of  the  laws  of  rightousness  been  more  plainly 
manifested,  or  His  justice  more  signally  vindicated, 
since  the  most  terrible  maledictions  of  the  old 
prophets  were  executed  upon  rebellious  Jews.  So 
fearful  a  thing  is  a  false  principl  e,  a  leaven  of  injus- 
tice in  the  organic  laws  of  the  State,  the  substitution 
of  human  self-will  for  the  eternal  law  of  right,  one 
with  the  will  of  God. 

Will  politicians  learn  by  such  experience  ?  Alas ! 
no,  they  never  rise  above  the  belief  that  God  is  on  the 
side  of  the  heaviest  cannon  and  the  most  skilful 
managers  of  elections.  Southern  politicians  used 
their  finest  craft  to  make  Mr.  Lincoln  President — 
they  had  their  purpose.  God  intended  they  should 
succeed  —  He  had  his  purpose.  Do  they  begin  to 
find  His  purpose  different  from  their  own  ?  —  not  at 
all,  only  at  present  they  lack  the  heaviest  cannon. 
So  Northern  politicians  are  preparing  their  deepest 
strategy  to  conserve  and  restore  slavery  to  the  ex- 
tent, rank  and  influence  it  had  before  the  rebellion. 
What  hope  then  remains  but  in  the  wider  diffusion 
and  infusion  of  the  light  and  salt  of  Christianity  in 
order  to  a  true  "  Uprising"  of  the  people  to  an  intel- 
lectual and  moral  level  above  the  sphere  of  the  pest- 
ilent influences  Jrorn  beloiv  which  so  many  of  them 
have  hitherto  obeyed.  Surely  unless  God  intends 
not  our  reformation  but  our  destruction,  the  occasion 
will  evolve  wise  statesmen  to  take  the  place  of  the 
bastard  tribe  of  politicians  who  have  so  long  ruled 
over  us,  Christian  and  patriotic  men  will  awake  to 
their  duties,  and  no  future  coalition  between  Northern 
demagogues  and  Southern  Slaveholders  —  if  such 
can  ever  again  be  formed,  which  God  forbid  !  —  will 


TIIE     AMERICAN     It  K  PUBLIC.  121 

find  either  voting  tools  or  preaching  tools  wherewith 
to  accomplish  its  accursed  purposes.  Let  us  thank 
God,  and  one  true  statesman  at  least  for  the  progress 
already  made  in  the  right  direction,  and  hope  and 
work  that  one  false  and  fatal  principle  may  be  wholly 
and  forever  eliminated  from  our  politics  and  so  a  re- 
petition of  the  consequences  of  its  presence  be 
avoided. 

Civil  freedom,  the  absence  of  legal  slavery,  and 
political  equality,  are  good  under  all  circumstances 
in  oo  far  as  they  give  the  consciousness  of  manhood, 
and  self-respect,  which  are  among  the  conditions  of 
becoming  truly  a  man,  but  they  may  exist  under 
circumstances  which  render  them  of  very  little  other 
value  to  some  of  their  possessors.  The  organic  laws, 
or  the  legislation  of  the  State,  may  be  such,  positive- 
ly or  negatively,  thr  t,  while  in  appearance  and  form 
and  intent^  they  are  just  and  equal  for  all,  and  aim 
at  a  true  unity  and  commonwealth,  they  may  be  very 
unjust  to  some,  very  unequal,  and  tend  inevitably, 
though  it  may  be  slowly  and  insidiously,  to  a  dan- 
gerous or  fatal  duality.  In  the  Declarations  of 
Rights  prefixed  to  raost  of  our  State  Constitutions, 
and  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence  it  is  asserted 
that  all  men  are  "  created,"  or  "  born"  equal,  that 
is,  naturally  entitled  to  equal  social  rights  and  im- 
munities ;  but  it  is  also  implied  in  most  subsequent 
legislation,  that  men  are  equal  in  moral  and  intellec- 
tual character  and  endowments.  Since,  however, 
this  is  not  so,  equal  laws  for  unequal  subjects  tend 
to  great  inequalities.  How  all  this  may  be  so,  and 
how  far  our  republican  governments  are  faulty  in 
these  respects  may  appear  by  considering  the  physi- 
cal well-being  of  its  citizens  as  one  of  the  ends  of  the 
11 


122  THE    AMERICAN     REPUBLIC. 

State,  and  the  natural  consequences  of  its  failure  to 
realize  it. 

Provision  to  a  certain  extent  for  the  primary 
wants  of  the  physical  life,  food,  raiment,  shelter,  are 
of  course  indispensable  to  living  at  all.  But  being 
and  well-being  may  be  very  wide  asunder.  Physi- 
cal well-being  implies  and  demands  such  physical 
provision,  conditions  and  relations  as  permit  the  full 
healthful  performance  of  the  functions  of  all  the  or- 
gans of  the  body.  They  must  not  be  such  as  require 
excessive  and  exclusive  muscular  labor  in  order  to. 
live,  and  thereby  become  incompatible  with  the  true 
human  ends  of  life.  Some  men  will  be  mere  ani- 
mals in  the  midst,  and  in  spite  of  all  opportunities 
to  be  more ;  but  the  true  State  will,  however,  put  in 
the  power  of  all  its  citizens,  and  defend  them  in  the 
right  to  become  men  by  the  full  self-realization  of 
both  body  and  mind.  Throughout  all  nature  the 
lower  is  the  condition  of  the  higher.  So  physical 
well-being,  which  is  common  to  men  and  animals,  is 
the  condition  of  the  development  and  proper  posses- 
sion of  that  by  which  men  are  more  than  animals. 

Here  we  come  to,  perhaps,  the  most  difficult  prob- 
lem with  which  the  statesman  has  to  deal — the 
legitimate  production  and  just  distribution  of  material 
wealth — -just  distribution,  and  legitimate  production. 
Just  distribution  is  not  necessarily  equal  distribu- 
tion ;  but  he  who  studies  the  genesis  of  wealth,  that 
is,  of  large  accumulations  of  property  in  the  posses- 
sion of  individuals,  will  find  injustice  not  an  occasional 
and  accidental,  but  a  constant  and  necessary  element 
of  such  wealth.  Somewhere  in  the  process  injustice 
has  entered  as  an  ingredient  without  which  the  ac- 
cumulation could  not  have  been  made — injustice, 


THE    AMERICAN    REPUBLIC.  123 

however,  in  the  Christian,  not  always  in  the  legal 
sense.  There  maj  be  imagined,  and  there  may  exist 
exceptional  cases,  but  I  speak  of  ordinary  "  business 
transactions." 

I  am  aware  of  the  feeling  with  which  this  assertion 
would  be  received  in  any  business  community,  but 
this,  perhaps,  instead  of  disproving  its  truth,  only 
shows  how  far  business  relations  are  from  being  con- 
trolled by  the  principles  of  Christianity.  Are  the 
ordinary  and  almost  constantly  observed  effects  of 
great  wealth  upon  the  character  of  the  possessors, 
both  in  pagan  and  Christian  times,  especially  upon 
the  heirs  of  those  who  acquired  it,  and  the  fact  that 
the  rich  man  shall  so  hardly  be  saved,  retributive 
consequences  of  the  injustice  which  is  a  necessary 
ingredient  of  it  ? 

A  competency,  that  is,  enough  to  furnish  the  con- 
ditions of  a  true  human  life,  with  accumulation 
sufficient  for  the  education  of  children  and  for  other 
proper  private  arid  public  demands,  is  within  the 
reach  of  all  not  deprived  of  or  neglecting  natural  op- 
portunities, and  that  without  excessive  or  exclusive 
muscular  labor.  It  is  to  such  men  of  moderate 
means  that  appeals  can  always  be  most  successfully 
made  to  assist  in  promoting  the  great  ends  of  educa- 
tion and  religion  and  other  worthy  public  objects, 
their  contributions  being  more  ready  and  larger  in 
proportion  to  pecuniary  ability  than  those  of  rich 
men,  with  fewest  exceptions.  The  more  equally 
wealth  is  distributed — or  at  least  in  the  absence  of 
extreme  differences — the  more  readily  available  it  is 
for  all  the  high  and  true  ends  of  it  whether  private 
or  public.  The  number  of  families  possessing  a  quiet 
competence  with  personal  industry  has  been  and  is 


124  TUB    AMERICAN     REPUBLIC. 

increasing  under  the  influence  of  Christianity  ;  but 
to  how  many  are  the  natural  opportunities  necessary 
to  its  acquisition  still  entirely  beyond  their  reach; 
for  how  many  do  the  products  of  their  labor  belong 
much  more  to  others  than  to  themselves  ! 

Legitimate  production  is  that  of  products  which, 
•whether  in  material  or  form,  subserve  the  true  ends 
of  material  wealth.  Those  products  of  labor  which 
enrich  some  only  in  proportion  as  they  injure  others, 
even  if  it  is  by  their  own  consent,  products  producing 
poverty  vice  and  crime,  are  surely  illegitimate  in  the 
true  State,  and  will  be  discouraged  and  forbidden  by  a 
truly  self-governing  people.  That  our  governments 
are  imperfect  on  this  point  both  in  their  Constitutions 
and  laws,  and  that  there  is  here  room  and  necessity 
for  a  higher  statesmanship,  and  a  wider  and  a  deeper 
infusion  and  application  of  Christian  principles,  is  not 
to  be  denied.  Here,  however,  at  least  in  regard  to 
some  of  these  products,  there  is  progress  both  in  pub- 
lic opinion  and  in  consequent  legislation. 

In  regard  to  the  distribution  of  wealth,  the  natur- 
al tendency  under  the  effects  of  what  are  called 
equal  laws,  is  towards  great  inequality  ;  not  simply 
a  healthful  difference,  but  such  that,  while  some 
have  more  than  the  true  ends  of  wealth  require,  in 
others  deficiency  may  defeat  all  but  the  very  lowest 
of  those  ends  ;  for  the  tendency  is  not  only  to  ine- 
quality but  more  and  more  to  the  very  extremes  of 
inequality.  This  is  easily  understood  from  the  na- 
tural differences  of  men  :  to  provide  against  the  con- 
sequences of  which  is  one  of  the  primary  duties  of 
the  State.  If  a  certain  quantity  of  food,  enough  to 
give  one  sufficient  meal  to  a  large  number  of  hungry 
men,  were  offered  to  them  under  the  "  equal  law  " 


THE    AMERICAN    REPUBLIC.  125 

that  each  should  have  so  much  as  his  strength  en- 
abled him  to  seize,  it  is  certain  that  some  would 
have  much  more  than  they  could  eat  at  one  meal, 
and  that  others  must  still  remain  hungry.  If  it 
were  announced  at  the  same  time  that  this  food  must 
serve  for  a  number,  an  uncertain  number,  of  meals, 
the  inequality  of  the  distribution  would  be  much 
greater  still.  This  is  exactly  the  natural  condition 
of  men  in  relation  to  food,  in  respect  of  muscular 
strength,  and  the  uncertainty  of  provision  for  the 
future.  But  Society  forbids,  and,  except  in  its  pri- 
mary or  retrograde  stages,  prevents  the  robbery  of  the 
weaker  by  the  stronger  muscles.  The  claim  of 
right  to  appropriate  the  product  of  another  man's  la- 
bor, (if  of  the  same  Society)  founded  on  mere  mus- 
cular superiority,  is  nowhere  allowed  even  by  the 
lowest  civilization — above  slavery.  If,  however,  the 
weaker  party  be  of  another  tribe  or  nation,  or  be  an- 
other tribe  or  nation,  how  high  must  be  the  civiliza- 
tion, how  deep  the  infusion  of  the  Christian  element 
before  this  claim  of  the  rights  of  superior  strength 
will  cease  to  be  practically  asserted  ?  Alas  !  higher 
and  deeper  than  any  hitherto  attained. 

If.  in  the  case  of  food  just  supposed,  the  distribu- 
tion were  to  take  place  under  the  equal  law  that  each 
man  should  have  what  he  could  acquire  by  strength 
of  brain  instead  of  muscles,  in  competition  with  the 
brains  of  all  the  others,  so  that  the  quantity  of  food 
acquired  by  each  should  be  in  proportion  to  the  en- 
dowment, development  and  activity  of  his  intellect, 
and  his  defect  of  moral  sense,  it  is  plain  that  the  ine- 
quality of  the  distribution  would  be  still  greater  than 
before,  since  the  intellectual  and  moral  differences 
of  men  are  much  greater  than  the  muscular.  Now  this 


126  THE     AMERICAN    REPUBLIC. 

is,  nearly,  in  our  communities,  the  relation  of  men 
to  material  wealth.  Its  acquisition  is  essentially  a 
contest  of  intellect.  But  while  the  State  protects 
the  weaker  muscles  against  the  stronger,  it  protects 
very  inefficiently,  or  not  at  all,  both  brains  and  mus- 
cles against  the  stronger  brain.  Material  wealth, 
though  the  immediate  product  of  muscular  labor, 
does  not,  however,  belong,  in  society,  to  those  whose 
muscles  produced  it,  but  is  to  be  distributed  in  pro- 
portion to  the  intellect  of  those  who  contend  for  it. 
Whatever  part  of  it  can  be  acquired  by  bargain, 
either  before  or  after  its  production,  whether  justly, 
or  unjustly  by  taking  advantage  of  the  ignorance 
the  lack  of  judgment,  the  lack  of  self-control,  or  of 
the  necessities  of  the  producers,  that,  practically,  the 
law  allows  and  the  court  awards.  And,  as  in  the  old 
piratical  times,  the  plunderer  is  honored  and  the 
plundered  despised.  The  inevitable  consequence  is, 
under  these  equal  laws,  that  wealth  tends  constant- 
ly to  accumulate,  with  an  ever  self-increasing  power, 
in  the  hands  of  some,  beyond  the  legitimate  purpose 
for  which  it  is  needed.  On  the  other  hand,  inas- 
much as  many  are  wholly  exempt  from  labor,  and 
the  muscular  labor  of  the  individual  can  produce  little 
more  than  enough  to  supply  the  necessities  of  him- 
iself  and  family,  it  follows,  that,  in  proportion  as  some, 
n  the  distribution  of  wealth,  acquire  an  excessive 
share,  others  must  receive  less  than  the  true  ends  of 
physical  well-being  require.  As  the  inequality  tends 
both  to  perpetuate  itself  and  to  increase  more  and 
more,  there  will  be  constantly  forming  a  large  and 
larger  class  whose  poverty  restricts  them  to  a  low 
and  imperfect  and  mere  animal  life  ;  whose  discour- 
agements tend  to  make  them  vicious  ;  whose  ignor- 


THE    AMERICAN     REPUBLIC.  127 

ance,  lack  of  self-control  and  physical  necessities 
render  them  the  easy  dupes  and  victims  of  unscru- 
pulous "wealth,  or  unscrupulous  intellect,  and  the 
ready  instruments  of  lying  demagogues.  These  ten- 
dencies to  duality  may  l^e  realized  in  varying  forms 
and  in  various  degrees.  We  may  find  half  of  the 
population,  more  or  less,  legal  slaves  of  the  rest,  as 
in  ancient  States  and  in  our  Southern  States ;  or  the 
same  proportion  practically  slaves  of  capital,  as  in 
modern  European  States,  under  the  operation  of  the 
laws  of  what  is  ironically  called  the  "  Science  of 
Political  Economy,"  that  is,  without  irony,  under 
the  laws  of  unrestricted  intellect  in  its  natural  rela- 
tions to  ignorance  ;  and  of  unrightous  and  unfeeling 
wealth  in  its  relations  to  poverty.  Or  we  may  find 
these  same  tendencies  in  their  earlier  stages,  as  in 
New  England  and  other  frte  States.  But  always 
and  everywhere  the  final  result,  unless  vigilantly 
counteracted,  will  be,  not  only  a  duality  of  capital 
and  labor,  but  ultimately  a  political  aristocracy  which 
will  make  the  many  subservient  to  the  pleasure  and 
profit  of  the  few. 

What  then  is  the  remedy  ?  First  of  all  a  clear  con- 
ception of  the  highest  end  of  the  State.  Which  is 
not,  as  would  seem  to  be  the  opinion  of  professed 
statesmen  and  political  economists,  the  increase  of 
national  wealth  with  very  little  regard  to  its  distri- 
bution. It  is  not  the  highest  feat  of  statesmanship 
to  negotiate  a  new  commercial  treaty,  to  compel 
trade  with  an  unwilling  people  at  the  cannon's  mouth, 
to  "open  avenues  to  enterprise"  so  as  to  ''give  em- 
ployment to  the  laboring  classes/''  to  increase  the 
amount  of  labor  by  sending  to  the  other  side  of  the 
planet,  or  of  the  continent,  for  what  might  be  pro- 


128  THE    AMERICAN     REPUBLIC. 

duced  rt  the  doors  of  the  consumers,  to  permit  labor 
to  be  wasted  upon  products  injurious  to  both  consum- 
ers and  producers,  and  in  general  to  act  on  the  as- 
sumption that  labor  is  good  per  se,  and  is  to  be  m 
every  way  increased. 

On  the  contrary  the  true  statesman  would  endeav- 
or, by  encouraging  home,  and  local  productions,  by 
incre?sing  the  facilities  and  diminishing  the  need  of 
transportation,  by  preventing  hurtful  and  useless 
production,  by  aiming  to  increase  the  efficiency  and  the 
use  of  labor-saving  machinery,  by  abating  and  coir  pel- 
ling  to  honest  labor  the  innumerable  loafers  and  para- 
sites of  society,  by  taxing  all  luxury  and  extravagance 
— by  these  and  suchlike  means  he  would  endeavor  not 
to  increase  but  to  diminish  the  sum  total  of  human 
muscular  labor  necessary  for  an  ample  supply  of  all 
the  legitimate  products  of  such  labor,  and  so,  to  dim- 
inish the  daily  labor  of  each  individual  and  give  time 
for  all  to  share  in  intellectual  occupations  and  enjoy- 
ments; that  is,  he  would  aim  not  at  the  largest  sum  to- 
tal of  wealth,  but  to  promote  the  highest  degree  and 
widest  diffusion  of  human  well-being — to  provide  for 
all  the  citizens  of  the  State,  and  to  preserve  for  them, 
not  only  against  the  encroachments  of  others,  but 
often  against  themselves,  the  conditions  of  a  complete 
and  worthy  earthly  life.  It  is  obvious  that,  in  order 
to  this,  the  principles  of  Christianity  must  be  appli- 
ed in  detail,  much  more  than  hitherto  they  have  been, 
to  all  the  legal  relations  of  men,  besides  the  infusion 
of  its  spirit  in  the  organic  laws  of  the  State.  It  is 
still  the  pagan  fashion  to  "  approve  the  better  and 
follow  the  worse."  We  "  declare"  all  men  endowed 
by  the  Creator  with  certain  inalienable  rights,  to  which 
we  immediately  add,  practically  —  provided  neverthe- 


THE     AMERICAN     REPUBLIC.  129 

less  that  many  of  them  may,  by  unequal,  or  equal 
laws,  be  deprived  of  these  rights.  But  even  Christ- 
ian laws  attempting  to  control  an  unchristian  people 
must  of  necessity  to  a  great  extent  fail.  Christian- 
ity is  essentially  self-government,  the  law  written  on 
the  heart,  for  which  coercion  is  always  an  imperfect 
and  often  an  impossible  substitute.  In  the  absence, 
or  in  the  delay  of  a  pewading  influence  of  Christ- 
ianity thoughout  the  community,  what  laws  can  best 
obviate  the  consequences  of  the  natural  differences  of 
men,  can  best  protect  all  against  the  injustice  of  any 
—  this  is  the  problem  of  problems,  this  is  for  the 
wisdom  of  the  wise  to  determine. 

It  may  not,  perhaps,  however,  be  beyond  the  reach 
of  ordinary  discernment  to  make  some  suggestions, 
to  indicate  some  fundamental  laws,  and,  in  general, 
the  kind  of  policy  by  which  the  free  State,  at  least 
our  own  Republic,  may  so  far  counteract  the  tenden- 
cies to  inequality  of  wealth  and  intelligence,  as  cer- 
tainly to  avoid  a  fatal  duality  and  consequent  return 
to  aristocracy  or  despotism.  First — The  Sources  of 
material  wealth,  Land,  Mines,  Fisheiies,  all  natural 
productive  agents,  or,  conditions  of  production,  ought 
to  be  carefully  distinguished  in  their  legal  treatment, 
from  that  wealth  which  is  the  product  and  embody- 
ment  of  labor.  The  management  of  the  domain  of 
tlie  State  is  the  truest  test  of  statemanship.  It  is 
certain  from  all  history  (or  with  fewest  exceptions  of 
small  commercial  States)  that  with  the  possession  of 
the  land  goes  the  possession  ot  political  power. 
This  is  the  very  corner-stone  of  aristocracy.  A  free 
State,  therefore,  should  guard  against  the  ever  strong 
tendency  to  this  most  dangerous  monopoly  by  the 
limitation  of  the  right  of  property  in  land.  The 


130  THE    AMERICAN     REPUBLIC. 

limit  may  properly  be  different  in  different  States, 
and  in  the  same  State  at  different  periods.  In  new 
countries  where  land  is  plenty  the  freedom  of  pur- 
chase may  be  less  restricted,  provided  the  purchase 
'is  made  for  cultivation  and  not  for  speculation,  which 
ought  to  be  wholly  prohibited.  As  population,  wealth, 
and  the  inequalities  of  wealth  increase  there  is  a  con- 
stant tendency  to  accumulations  of  the  land,  the  large 
farms  absorbing  on  every  side  the  smaller  ones.  This 
is  especially  the  case,  for  obvious  reasons,  in  slave- 
holding  States. 

Now,  it  is  plain,  that  just  in  proprortion  to  the 
largeness  of  these  accumulations,  this  monopoly  of  the 
source?  of  food,  raiment,  fuel  and  shelter,  will  be  the 
number  of  mere  agricultural  laborers  :  and  that  the 
tendency  will  be  to  their  reception  of  a  smaller  and 
smaller  proportion  of  the  products  of  their  labor,  un- 
til, as  in  England,  they  receive  an  inadequate  supply 
of  the  first  necessaries  of  animal  life ;  or,  as  in  our 
cotton  States,  there  is  formed  a  class  of  landless,  la- 
borless,  worthless  "poor  whites."  Such  are  the 
tendencies  to  be  counteracted  going  directly  towards 
both  social  and  political  aristocracy.  It  will  certain- 
ly be  the  policy  of  a  free  State,  a  State  for  men, 
whose  aim  is  not  national  wealth  but  national  well- 
being,  to  have  among  its  people  the  smallest  possible 
number  of  men  wholly  and  permanently  dependent 
upon  labor,  who  have  no  property  but  in  the  muscles 
of  their  own  bodies.  A.  class  of  such  men  in  a  free 
State  will  inevitably  be  the  victims  of  unscrupulous 
capital,  and  the  tools  of  uncrupulous  politicians. 

It  is  very  damaging  proof  of  how  far  we  still  are 
from  comprehending  the  meaning  the  word  right- 
ousness.  in  the  New  Testament  sense,  that  in  all  the 


THE    AMERICAN    RERUBLIC.  ,181 

States  of  Christendom,  there  is  still  a  large  population 
not  much  better  off  than  the  old,  "  besfes  en  pare," 
now  called  "the  laboring  classes, "not  because  they  lab- 
or, but  because  their  only  possession  is  the  faculty  to 
labor,  and  that  these  classes,  whose  muscles  are  the 
condition  and  fountain  of  wealth  are  also  often  appro- 
priately called  "  the  laboring  poor ;"  that  they  are 
often  dependent  for  permission  to  labor,  dependent 
for  condescending  patronage,  protection,  and  not  un- 
frequently  much  needed  charity  \  dependent  even 
for  the  privilege  to  come,  anywhere,  in  contact  with 
their  mother  Earth,  upon  the  good  pleasure  of  those 
whom  the  products  of  their  labor  have  made  rich. 
In  an  aristocratic  State  this  may  be  said  to  be  the 
natural  relation  of  the  producers  of  wealth  to 
the  possessors  of  it.  But  in  a  self-organizing,  self- 
governing,  and  wise  State  estimating  the  production 
of  MEN  higher  than  that  of  wealth,  so  dependent  a 
class,  if  it  exists  at  all,  ought  to  consist  only  of  the 
incorrigibly  indolent  and  vicious.  If,  with  us,  at 
least  in  the  free  States,  this  class  is  comparatively 
small,  whether  in  agriculture  or  other  industries,  let 
us  be  careful  to  counteract  the  causes  which  here 
also  tend  constantly  to  increase  it. 

In  our  own  country  the  capabilities  of  the  national 
domain  an  so  rich,  various,  and  complete,  as  to  ren- 
der us,  if  we  choose,  for  all  the  true  ends  of  a  State, 
wholly  independent  of  all  other  nations.  The  num- 
ber of  persons  engaged  in  agriculture  might,  there- 
fore, be  in  the  natural  proportion  to  those  of  the 
other  two  great  industrial  employments,  the  mechan- 
ical and  the  mercantile  —  a  number,  probably,  great- 
er than  that  of  both  the  others,  or  not  far  from  half 
of  the  whole  population.  This,  with  a  judicious  provi- 


132  THE    AMERICAN     REPUBLIC. 

sion  against  accumulations  of  the  land,  would  give, 
not  homeless  laborers,  not  oppressed  tenantry,  peasan- 
try, ryotry,  or  slaves,  but  a  body  of  independent 
and  intelligent  proprietors  above  the  patronage  ard 
seductions  of  demagogues,  who,  in  the  exercise  of 
the  most  ordinary  prudence  and  simple  self-defence 
of  their  own  permanent  interests,  would  defend  the 
State  against  all  danger  of  domestic  despotism  ;  and, 
trained  to  the  use  of  arms,  could  laugh  at  all  foreign 
enemies.  This,  it  may  be  objected,  is  not  the  meth- 
od by  which  the  land  could  be  made  to  yield  *he 
greatest  amount  of  material  wealth.  Whether  the 
objection  asserts  the  truth  or  not  it  can  be  valid  only 
for  those  who  estimate  higher  the  production  of  corn 
and  cotton  than  of  men, 

Second — In  order  to  still  farther  protection  of  the 
less  shrewd  and  energetic  in  this  department  of  in- 
dustry, a  fundamental  law  of  the  State  should  re- 
serve to  every  farmer,  free  from  liability  for  debt  or 
mortgage  except  for  the  purchase  money,  a  home- 
stead, not  of  a  certain  value,  but  a  certain  quantity 
of  land  (with  its  products)  varying  according  to  the 
quality,  with  the  farm  buildings  upon  it  if  any,  and 
sufficient,  under  careful  cultuvation,  for  the  support 
of  a  family.  Such  homestead  should  also  be  preserv- 
ed entire,  tRe  proprietor  not  being  permitted  to  sell 
any  part  of  it  unless  he  sells  the  whole,  that  is  the 
law  should  protect  him  against  himself  as  well  as 
against  others.  For  it  is  among  the  duties  of  the 
State  to  protect  and  govern  those  who  are  not  cap- 
able of  self-protection  and  self-government.  It  is  an 
encouraging  evidence  of  progress  already  commenc- 
ed, of  the  existence  of  a  public  instinct  in.  the  right 
direction,  that,  while  not  long  since  the  debtor  was 


TUB    AMERICAN     REPUBLIC.  133 

stripped  of  all  personal  property,  and  his  body  im- 
prisoned for  a  few  dollars  —  anciently  even  the  dead 
body  of  the  debtor  could  be  held  from  burial  until 
his  debts  were  paid  —  now,  his  body,  his  furniture, 
the  instruments  of  his  occupation  are  free  from  seiz- 
ure ;  homesteads,  are,  in  several  States,  begining  to 
be  granted  ;  and,  at  least  in  regard  to  United  States 
land,  unlimited  purchase  is  forbidden. 

Third — To  defend  those  engaged  in  mechanical 
employments  against  the  oppressions  of  capital,  and 
the  injustices  of  superior  intellect,  is  much  more  dif- 
ficult. Every  practical  mechanic  of  whatever  kind 
should  be  entitled  to  the  exemption  of  his  house  and 
at  least  one  acre  of  land ;  the  hours  of  daily  labor 
ought  not  to  exceed  eight,  leaving  time  for  mental 
cultivation.  The  natural  division  of  daily  time  and 
occupations  seems  to  be  into  three  equal  parts,  eight 
hours  for  muscular  labor,  eight  for  intellectual,  and 
eight  for  rest ;  for  a  careful  study  of  man's  natural 
relations  to  the  sources  of  food  and  other  things 
needful  for  the  animal  life  shows,  that,  with  a  just 
distribution  of  muscular  labor,  and  a  just  division  of 
its  products,  eight  hours  labor  is  sufficient  for  the 
ample  supply  of  all  his  physical  necessities.  If  some- 
men  would  not  become  any  more  intelligent  by  di- 
minishing their  hours  of  labor,  this  does  not  affect 
the  duty  of  the  State  to  give  all  the  opportunity ; 
and  in  order  to  do  this,  besides  instruction  provided, 
the  accursed  parasites  who  furnish  temptations  to 
useless  and  hurtful  expenditure  of  money  and  waste  of 
time  ought  to  be  exterminated  with  the  most  relent- 
less severity.  A  wise  State  would  aim  also  to 
preserve  the  natural  proportion  of  mechanics  to  those 
in  other  employments  by  a  judicious  regulation  of 


134  THE    AMERICAN    REPUBLIC. 

manufactures  so  as  to  prevent  excess  and  consequent 
injurious  competition  of  laborers,  and,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, uncertainties  and  fluctuations  of  market. 

True  national  independence  requires  the  home 
production  and  home  manufacture,  as  far  as  the  nat- 
ural resources  of  the  country  permit,  of  everything 
necessary  to  national  well-being  and  self  defence. 
Our  own  country  is  happily  competent  to  furnish 
everything  whatever  desirable  for  these  ends ;  and 
should  therefore,  be,  and  remain,  in  the  fullest  sense 
of  the  word,  independent.  Certainly  to  this  extent 
of  entire  self-reliance  and  self-sufficiency  should  pro- 
duction of  material  and  manufactures  be  protected 
against  foreign  competition ;  to  this  extent  they 
should  be  established  and  have  the  monopoly  of  the 
home  market,  notwithstanding  any  necessary  but 
temporary  increase  of  prices.  Thus  provided,  a  great 
nation  is  essentially  invulnerable  from  without.  The 
blockade  of  their  ports  would  be  a  matter  of  entire 
indifference.  The  lack  of  preparation,  making  war 
in  the  absence  of  the  means  of  self-reliance,  was  the 
fatal  mistake  of  the  Confederate  States.  If  permitted 
to  preserve  slavery  they  will  be  better  provided  next 
time.  The  State,  then,  should  manufacture  every- 
thing necessary  for  its  own  defence,  and  for  the  supply 
of  its  home  markets,  developing  its  own  resources 
and  its  own  skill. 

Should  the  free  State  manufacture  for  foreign 
markets?  It  should  not,  since  it  would  be  contra- 
dictory to  the  true  policy  of  the  free  State  by 
throwing  into  that  department  of  industry  an  unnat- 
ural proportion  of  laborers  who  would  be  liable  at 
any  time  to  become  a  class  of  dependent  and  helpless 
operatives  ;  for  foreign  markets  are  not  only  fluctu- 


THE    AMERICAN     REPUBLIC.  135 

ating  but  may  at  any  moment  through  commercial  or 
political  disturbances  fail  altogether.  Manufacturers 
on  the  contrary,  having  command  of  the  home  mar- 
ket, would  soon  bring  their  profits  to  the  average  of 
those  of  other  employments ;  and  having  a  compara- 
tively certain  and  reliable  market,  would  be  unlikely 
to  create  an  unfortunate  surplus  of  manufacturing 
labor.  The  danger  from  depending  upon  foreign 
markets  and  foreign  material  is  well  illustrated  by 
the  present  condition  of  some  European  manufac- 
tures. Our  country,  complete  in  itself,  may  be, 
and  ought  to  be,  indifferent  to  the  commercial  policy 
of  other  nations.  Whether  the  two  antagonist  classes 
of  employers  and  operatives,  so  liable  to  produce  ex- 
tremes, both  disastrous,  of  wealth  and  poverty,  may 
not  be  dispensed  with,  by  practical  mechanics  associ- 
ating and  furnishing  each  both  capital  and  labor,  and 
dividing  the  income,  is  a  question  which  they  seem 
about  to  consider.  Such  a  class  of  manufacturers, 
soon  becoming  intelligent  and  independent,  would 
furnish  no  tools  for  demagogues,  and  confining  them- 
selves to  home  markets,  would  be  for  the  free  State 
among  the  most  reliable  of  its  citizens. 

Of  the  three  great  industrial  departments  of  the 
State,  and  sources  of  material  wealth,  the  three  great 
organs  of  supply  for  man's  physical  necessities  which 
ought  to  be  carefully  restrained  each  to  its  appropri- 
ate function,  Commerce,  foreign  commerce,  is  far 
the  most  likely  to  be  active  out  of  due  proportion,  to 
be  in  excess.  Especially  is  this  the  case  in  this 
country  from  the  great  extent  of  its  maritime  border. 
This  "Interest"  is  extremely  liable  to  become  a 
Self-interest,  and  to  forget  that  it  is  only  an  organ  of 
the  Commonwealth.  Statesmen,  of  the  near-sight- 


136  THB    AMERICAN    REPUBLIC. 

ed  species,  whose  highest  end  is  Ct  national  wealth/' 
are  always  patrons  of  commerce,  and  seek  and  make 
treaties  with  special  reference  to  it.  The  people,  too, 
are  delighted  with  the  ever  ready  declamations  of 
"  our  sails  whitening  every  sea,"  and  "  our  flag  dis- 
played in  every  port."  The  consequence  is,  that, 
soon,  Commerce  becomes  a  domineering  imperium 
in  imperio,  sacrificing  the  common  wealth  to  the 
commercial  interest.  For  this  interest  forbids,  or 
may  forbid,  the  proportionate,  the  natural  develop- 
ment of  agriculture,  mining  and  manufactures,  that 
is,  of  those  natural  resources  of  the  country  which 
are  the  only  sources  of  true  national  independence 
and  safety.  The  power  of  the  Class  is  maintained  by 
the  influence  of  the  vulgar  Political  Economy  of 
"  free  trade," — good,  it  may  be,  for  small,  insular, 
shop-keeping  States  like  England,  provided  she  can 
succeed  in  controlling  the  markets  of  the  world ;  and 
if  the  largest  sum  total  of  accumulated  wealth  is  the 
highest  end  of  the  State — and  by  the  taking  and  effi- 
cient sophistry  that  protection  of  home-manufactures, 
and  of  home-production  of  raw  material,  would  cer- 
tainly very  much  increase  cost  to  consumers.  Thus 
by  the  terror  of  high  prices,  which  would  be  but  mo- 
mentary, their  monopolies  and  their  own  prices  are 
preserved.  The  true  interest  of  the  Commonwealth, 
on  the  contrary,  requires  that  foreign  Commerce 
should  be  but  the  complement  <&  the  other  industrial 
activities,  supplying  such  useful  things  as  the  coun- 
try itself  cannot  produce,  such  luxuries  not  necessary 
to  physical  well-being,  as  a  wise  State  would  admit, 
and  exporting  the  surplus  of  agricultural  products. 
The  spirit  of  Commerce  has  been  always  and  every- 
where one  of  injustice  and  oppression  towards  the 


THE    AMERICAN     REPUBLIC.  137 

weak  abroad,  and,  of  course,  of  selfishness  and  mo- 
nopoly at  home.  In  a  State  where  commerce  is  not 
restrained  within  its  proper  sphere,  the  spirit  of 
trade,  stimulated  by  frequent  instances  of  the  rapid 
acquisition  of  wealth ;  not  very  rarely  of  immense 
wealth,  giving  splendor  and  title  to  "  merchant 
princes ;"  exciting  great  numbers  by  the  hope  of 
similar  good  fortune — this  spirit  of  speculation,  and 
impatience  of  quiet  industry  pervade  all  the  business 
of  society,  and  instead  of  choosing  a  life-long  employ- 
ment as  the  necessary  means  for  the  animal  life,  and 
the  condition  of  that  without  which  our  life  is  of  no 
more  worth  than  that  of  animals,  intellectual  and 
spiritual  good,  men  give  themselves  body  and  soul  to 
the  one  end  of  making  haste  to  be  rich,  richer,  rich- 
est. This  same  spirit  even  invades  agriculture.  The 
farmer,  instead  of  seeking  to  make  for  himself  a 
delightful  home,  to  restore,  as  he  only  can,  so  much 
as  remains  possible  of  the  lost  paradise,  gratifying 
his  affections  and  his  taste  by  every  beautiful  and 
beautified  aspect  of  the  spot  of  earth  he  calls  his  own, 
making  it  both  means  and  end  for  the  humanity 
within  him — instead  of  these  human  feelings  and 
rational  aims  he  looks  upon  his  potential  Eden  as 
mere  land,  which  he  regards  only  as  the  instrument 
of  gain,  impatient  of  a  culture  in  which  he  might 
make  his  daily  labor  a  series  of  scientific  experiments, 
and  restless  to  find  the  most  immediately  profitable 
crops,  in  the  very  spirit  of  traffic,  he  makes  haste  to 
be  rich.  Commerce,  moreover,  produces  what  is 
especially  to  be  avoided  in  a  free  State,  extremes  of 
wealth  and  poverty.  Employing  great  numbers  of 
laborers,  mere  operatives  of  the  lowest  kind,  it  cre- 
ates a  mass  of  unassimilated  and  unassimilable  ma- 


138  TUB    AMERICAN    .REPUBLIC. 

terial  in  the  vitals  of  the  body  politic  to  be  a  nuisance, 
a  disease  and  a  danger  to  the  life  of  the  State. 
Hence  large  commercial  cities  are  the  hot-beds  of 
luxury,  vice,  crime,  demagogueism,  and  of  worse 
than  Athenian  democracy,  a  reproach,  and  to  out- 
side observers,  a  despair  of  the  Republican  State. 

Besides  the  essential  normal  organs  of  the  State, 
there  are  certain  instruments  more  or  less  made  use 
of  by  most  governments,  convenient  for  some  purpos- 
es, but  often  of  doubtful  expediency,  and  which,  if 
used  at  all,  ought  to  be  kept — as  generally  they  are 
not — most  rigidly  under  control.  The  government 
has  no  right  to  bestow  upon  others  the  privilege  to 
do,  practically  upon  their  own  terms,  what  its  own 
duty  requires  it  to  do  upon  the  best  possible  terms 
for  the  public  good.  The  fewer  the  intermediate 
agents,  the  more  direct  and  effective  the  accountability 
to  the  principal.  If  the  immediate  personal  agents 
of  the  government  are  found  to  be  corrupt  they  are 
immediately  responsible  to  the  government,  and  the 
government,  if  it  does  not  punish  them,  to  the  peo- 
ple ;  but  chartered  instruments  contrive  to  evade 
indefinitely  responsibility  to  either.  As  to  such 
corporate  monopolies,  those  daughters  of  the  horse- 
leech, it  is  to  be  hoped  that  a  little  more  experience 
of  them  may  prove  sufficient.  It  is  fortunate  that 
they  are  ultimately  in  the  power  of  those  upon  whose 
blood  they  are  fattening,  and  it  were  well  that  they 
be  dealt  with  after  the  manner  of  treating  others  of 
the  leech  tribe — stripped. 

Every  dollar  of  the  vast  sums  with  which  certain 
Railroad  and  other  Corporations  control,  to  a  great 
extent,  the  elections,  the  legislation  and  the  courts  of 
the  States  from  which  they  receive  their  charters, 


THE    AMERICAN     REPUBLIC.  139 

besides  being  the  product  of  labor  for  which  no 
equivalent  was  given,  is  a  contribution  by  the  com- 
munity to  a  corruption-fund  for  its  own  demoraliza- 
tion. Every  dollar  of  the  millions  with  which  the 
gamblers  of  Wall  Street  and  of  other  Streets  de- 
range business,  embarrass  the  government,  degrade 
and  disgrace  the  commercial  character  of  the  country, 
and  finally  devour  one  another — would  that  they 
could  be  treated  as  the  bees  treat  the  drones  of  their 
society — all  these  vast  sums,  the  product  of  labor, 
have  been  taken  from  the  producers  by  contract  or 
by  force — and  contracts  may  be  equally  compulsory 
with  slavery  itself — in  such  proportion,  in  the  great 
majority  of  cases,  that  the  laborer  received  only 
sufficient  for  the  lowest  animal  life,  and  to  enable 
him  to  continue  the  use  if  not  the  enjoyment  of  his 
only  possession,  the  muscles  of  his  own  body.  These 
muscles  may  have  belonged  to  the  sailor  and  along- 
shore man ;  to  the  sewing  girl  who  makes  shirts  at 
six  cents  apiece  ;  to  the  slave  in  the  rice  swamp  or 
cotton  field  ;  to  the  English  operative,  or  the  Irish 
tenant ;  to  the  cultivator  of  coffee  under  Dutch  op- 
pressions in  Java ;  to  the  producer  of  pepper  on 
compulsion  in  Sumatra,  or  his  who  for  the  same 
reason  delivers  to  the  English  landlord  so  many 
pounds  of  opium  to  the  acre  in  India  to  be  forced  up- 
on the  Chinese  in  order  to  the  civilization  which  we 
are  told  commerce  always  carries  along  with  it.  An 
autobiography  by  each  dollar  of  a  millionaire's  heap 
would  be  instructive  reading ;  and  if  stolen  property 
never  loses  its  character  by  transfer,  on  due  claim  by 
the  rightful  owners,  how  much  of  the  million  would 
be  left  on  which  no  taint  of  injustice  could  be  found  ? 
These  views,  doubtless,  would  be  pronounced 


140  THE    AMERICAN    REPUBLIC. 

heterodox  by  statesmen  of  the  popular  laisscz 
faire,  free  trade  school,  whose  doctrine  is  that  all 
individual  men,  all  Interests,  and  all  Nations  are  to 
he  left  to  unlimited  and  unrestrained  competition, 
each,  in  relation  to  others,  to  he  entitled  to  whatever 
any  relative  advantage  may  give,  and  to  whatever 
may  he  acquired  hy  bargain  or  treaty,  no  matter  un- 
der what  conditions  of  comparative  strength  or 
weakness  of  brain,  under  what  compulsion  of  necessi- 
ty, lack  of  self-control,  or  other  coercion  short  of 
highway  robbery.  Indeed,  in  regard  to  nations  they 
may,  it  seems,  demand  commercial  treaties,  and  com- 
pel the  fulfilment  of  them  at  the  cannon's  mouth ; 
which  is,  however,  no  more  efficient  or  unjust  coercion 
than  is  often  practiced  by  individuals,  and  Interests 
of  the  same  nation  towards  each  other. ' 

But  THE  STATE  is  more  than  an  aggregation  of 
individuals,  each  by  himself  and  for  himself,  unre- 
strained in  relation  to  others  except  by  a  general 
rule  forbidding  assault  and  battory  ;  it  is  more  than 
an  aggregation  of  Interests  each  of  which  may  aim 
exclusively  at  self-interest.  The  State  is  an  OR- 
GANISM, in  which  each  organ  has  its  appropriate  and 
natural  function,  not  only  in  relation  to  itself,  but  to 
each  of  the  other  organs,  and  to  the  well-being  of  the 
whole  body  politic.  In  other  organisms,  excess  or 
deficiency  or  perversion  of  the  function,  whether  of 
one  or  of  several  organs,  is  disease,  and  this  de- 
rangement, if  considerable  and  continued,  is  fatal 
disease.  In  the  human  body,  when  each  or  any  of 
the  lower  organs  claims  to  be  the  best  judge  of  its 
own  interests,  and  in  disobedience  to  that  to  which 
supremacy  belongs,  and  in  insurrection  against  the 
common  good  of  the  organism,  seeks  only  its  own 


THE    AMERICAN     REPUBLIC.  141 

self-indulgence,  all  the  organs  soon  perish  together. 
This  is  more  than  a  metaphorical  illustration  of  the 
relations  of  the  great  industrial  and  educational  In- 
terests of  the  State  to  each  other,  to  the  government 
which  should  wisely  preside  over  them,  and  to  the 
common  well-being ;  for  the  State  is  not  less  an  or- 
ganism than  is  each  of  the  bodies  of  its  citizens,  and 
essentially  the  same  organic  laws  are  ordained  for 
both,  with  the  same  consequences  of  their  violation. 
In  irrational  organisms  all  the  organs  co-operate  in- 
stinctively, without  mutual  antagonism,  under  a 
divine  guidance,  towards  the  true  ends  of  the  organ- 
ism. But  in  the  human  body,  much  more  in  the 
political  organism,  this  spontaneous  divine  harmony 
does  not  exist,  and  upon  the  man,  and  the  govern- 
ment, is  thrown  the  difficult  and  often  neglected  or 
abused  prerogative  and  responsibility  of  maintaining 
it.  Laisscz  faircj  in  both  cases,  is  not  merely  fail- 
ure of  the  true  end,  but  derangement,  disease  and 
death.  An  overgrown  commercial  Interest  may  not 
only  interfere  to  prevent  the  development  of  manu- 
factures, of  the  agricultural,  mining  and  other  natu- 
ral resources  of  the  country  necessary  to  its  true 
independence,  but  it  may  continue  and  render  per- 
manent this  one  sided  and  unsafe  development,  either 
through  public  opinion,  by  subsidizing  the  press  to 
propagate  the  sophistries  of  free  trade,  by  the  em- 
ployment of  demagogues  to  manipulate  elections,  or 
through  the  direct  control  of  the  government  itself 
by  means  too  often  with  all  governments  effective. 

So  the  excessive  development  of  manufactures, 
that  is,  manufactures  working  for,  and  dependent 
upon  foreign  markets,  may  not  only  disturb  the  do- 
mestic health  of  the  State  in  the  way  already  spoken 


142  THE    AMERICAN     REPUBLIC. 

of,  but  may  seduce  the  government  into  treaties  and 
even  wars  for  the  supposed  benefit  of  the  manufac- 
turing interest  though  hostile  to  the  true  interests  of 
the  Commonwealth.  Thus  the  "  Manufacturing  In- 
terest" also  may  become  an  aggressive  and  domineer- 
ing power,  aiming  at  the  conquest  of  the  markets  of 
the  world.  The  methods  of  acquiring  and  retaining 
such  conquests  exhibit  often  the  most  selfish' and  very 
basest  qualities  of  humanity,  and,  like  those  of  other 
aristocracies,  they  are  not  only  frequently  unjust  and 
oppressive  towards  the  conquered,  but  are  sure  to 
result  ultimately  in  disaster  to  their  own  country. 
Certainly  a  wise  State  will  not  permit  a  large  pro- 
portion of  its  population  to  become  exposed  to  the 
danger  at  any  time,  we  may  say  to  the  certainty,  by 
and  by,  of  being  deprived  of  their  daily  bread  by  any 
of  the  proverbially  fluctuating  conditions  of  universal 
trade,  or  the  vicissitudes  of  universal  politics.  In 
which  case  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men,  as  now  in 
England,  may  have  to  be  fed  by  what  is  facetiously 
called  "charity;"  that  is,  to  have  the  product  of 
their  own  labor  doled  out  to  them  to  the  great  credit 
of  the  philanthrophy  of  those  who  have  been  enriched 
by  it ;  or  else  the  State  must  go  to  war,  as  perhaps 
England  will,  for  the  purpose  of  recovering  what  the 
manufacturing  interest  may  have  lost. 

There  never  was  a  country  so  complete  in  itself 
as  the  American  Republic,  so  wholly  free  from  all 
necessary  dependence  upon  foreign  nations.  Its  nat- 
ural resources  are  ample  for  the  supply  of  everything 
which  can  be  desired  in  order  to  the  protection,  the 
material  wealth,  and  the  physical  well-being  of  the 
State.  There  needs,  in  order  to  a  more  than  hither- 
to ever  anywhere  attained  national  felicity,  only  that 


THE     AMERICAN     REPUBLIC.  143 

the  people  and  the  government  seek  wisely,  not  na- 
tional wealth,  but,  in  the  high  and  Christian  sense, 
national  well-being.  There  needs,  not  a  pagan  and 
"stationary"  morality,  but  the  application  of  Chris- 
tian principles  to  all  the  relations  of  man  to  man,  of 
Interest  to  Interest,  of  State  to  State,  and  of  the 
nation  to  all  other  nations.  Whether  a  false  and 
unrightous  principle  can  be  safely  left  among  the  or- 
ganic laws  of  the  State  to  work  out  its  natural  re- 
sult— under  the  expectation  that  by  and  by  it  will 
die  out — our  present  war  can  answer.  Slavery  im- 
plies the  fatal  pagan  duality,  which  is.  of  necessity, 
if  left  to  itself,  ultimately  destructive  of  both  its  ex- 
tremes. The  effects  of  slavery  are  to  subject  its  vic- 
tims to  failure  of  all  the  ends  of  the  earthly  human 
life,  and  to  degrade,  demoralize  and  paganize  the  mas- 
ters,— a  retributive  consequence  to  one  party  involved 
in  their  injustice  towards  the  other.  But  the  basis 
of  slavery  is  deeper  than  the  legal  enactment 
that  A.  B.  C.  etc.  may  be  held  and  treated  as  the 
chattels  ot  D.  or  whoever  shall  purchase  them.  The 
same  principles  controling  or  permitting  the  rela- 
tions of  man  to  man,  which,  in  some  modern  States — 
as  they  aid  in  all  ancient  ones  —  have  resulted  in 
legal  slavery — these  same  principles  still  everywhere 
unextinguished,  and  more  or  less  operative  in  all 
States,  always,  in  proportion  to  their  activity,  tend 
towards  a  duality  subversive  of  the  ends  of  the  true 
Commonwealth,  and  if  unrestrained,  must  result,  by 
a  natural  law,  in  aristocracy,  slavery,  or  some  other 
form  of  despotism.  So  long  and  so  far  as  the  natur- 
al and  acquired  mental  and  moral  differences  of  men 
are  disregarded  in  legislation  and  there  is  permitted 
free  competition  of  all  in  regard  to  the  acquisition  of 


144  THE    AMERICAN     REPUBLIC. 

material  wealth,  and  even  of  the  very  sources  of 
wealth,  unrestrained  in  its  methods  except  as  to  the 
use  of  physical  force,  while  at  the  same  time  the  many 
are  left  to  their  natural  indolence  in  regard  to  intel- 
lectual acquisitions,  what  ever  has  been,  and  what 
ever  can  be  —  until  men  have  become  angels  —  the 
result  but  a  monopoly  of  the  land  and  other  primary 
sources  of  wealth,  the  unequal  and  unjust  division 
of  the  products  of  muscular  labor,  the  secondary 
great  source  of  material  property,  great  accumula- 
tions of  wealth  and  developed  intellect  in  posession 
of  the  comparatively  few,  and  correlatively  great 
poverty  and  ignorance  in  possession  of  the  many  ? 
But  this  is  ARISTOCRACY,  social,  intellectual,  and 
political,  not  less  and  not  better  where  there  is  still 
retained  the  formality  of  universal  suffrage  and 
nominal  freedom  —  which,  however,  will  not  be  long 
retained  under  such  circumstances — than  where  the 
government  is  in  the  hands  of  an  hereditary  oligar- 
chy backed  by  standing  armies.  The  mother  vice 
here,  prolific  of  all  these  consequences  fatal  to  the 
free  State,  is  the  admission  into,  or  rather  the  failure 
to  exclude  from  the  legislation  of  the  State,  principles 
which  necessarily  result,  not  in  the  unequal  merely, 
but  the  unjust  distribution  of  the  natural  sources  of 
wealth  and  of  the  products  of  labor ;  for  from  this 
all  the  rest  follows  logically  and  inevitably.  As  in 
the  old  pagan  world  physical  superiority,  through 
robbery,  piracy,  war,  appropriated  the  product  of 
other  men's  labor  and  made  the  weaker  the  legal 
slaves  of  the  stronger  ;  so  in  modern  civilization  in- 
tellectual superiority  inscribed  with  the  same  old 
motto  "  might  makes  right,"  is  permitted,  by  paral- 
lel means,  under  other  names,  to  work  towards  es- 
sentially similar  results. 


THE     AMERICAN     KEFUBLIC.  145 

Have  then  our  governments  State  and  Kational 
done  nothing  to  counteract  this  inherent  tendency  of  all 
human  States  towards  a  natural  and  essentially  pa- 
gan dualism  ?  —  much,  most  of  them,  by  Declara- 
tion] by  legislation,  much,  some  of  them,  others 
nothing.  Examples  of  the  different  results  are  seen 
in  Massachusetts  and  South  Carolina.  But  even  in 
the  best  States  this  tendency  is  only  more  or  less 
counteracted.  The  principle  which  always  develops 
itself  in  this  direction  is  still  left  everywhere  active. 
It  is  to  some  extent  instinctively  Jelt,  it  seems  to  be 
nowhere  distinctly  perceived,  that,  laissez  faire  is 
not  less  false  or  less  unjust  when  applied  to  brain 
than  when  applied  to  muscles,  in  regard  to  which  it 
was  long  ago — at  least  as  between  individuals  and 
guilds — discarded.  Christianity  has  been,  indeed — 
as  already  shown — and  is,  everywhere,  except  in 
some  parts  proh  pudor !  of  the  United  States, 
counteracting  and  modifying  the  legitimate  results  of 
this  principle,  but  if  we,  some  of  us,  seem  to  have 
resisted  them  more  successfully  than  other  nations, 
let  us  thank  God  for  a  fertile  and  wide  country, 
which  has  hitherto  prevented  monopoly  of  land  and 
a  crowded  population,  so  that  the  great  problem  of 
capital  and  labor,  far  from  being  practically  solved 
by  us  of  the  North,  has  hardly  yet  began  to  press 
upon  us  for  solution.  Hitherto,  among  all  nations, 
the  claim  of  capital  that  its  power  is  the  proper  meas- 
ure of  its  right — have  I  not  a  right  to  do  what  I  can 
with  mine  own? — has  been  practically  admitted.  If 
there  have  been  protests  against  the  abuse  of  this  power 
and  attempts  of  legislation  to  control  it  they  have  met 
with  small  success.  It  is  a  power  of  all  others  most  un- 
scrupulous, and  most  difficult,  it  may  be  said  impos- 
13 


146  THE    AMERICAN     REPUBLIC. 

Bible  wholly  to  restrain,  and  yet  a  power  whose  con- 
trol is  indispensable  to  the  safety  and  well-being  of 
the  free  State.  The  usual  stereotype  answer  to  this 
view  of  the  subject  is  easy  to  be  repeated,  with  ridi- 
cule of  the  author's  ignorance  of  "The  Science  of 
Political  Economy."  It  is  easy  to  assert  that  the  re- 
lations of  capital  and  labor  are  those  of  mutual  de- 
pendence and  mutual  advantage.  This  is  very  true, 
for  the  reason  that  capital  must  use  the  muscles  of 
others  because  it  has  none  of  its  own,  and  muscles 
are  indispensable  to  the  production  of  wealth ;  and 
for  the  reason  that  labor  cannot  use  its  own  muscles 
without  asking  leave  of  capital.  And  this  is  so  by 
reason  not  only  of  the  unequal  but  the  unjust  dis- 
tribution of  wealth  ;  and  of  the  monopoly  by  wealth 
of  the  "natural  agents  "  which  are  the  condition  of 
productive  muscular  labor,  the  sources,  in  combination 
with  labor,  of  food  and  of  all  material  on  which  la- 
bor is  expended.  Since  the  muscles  of  the  individual, 
even  in  his  natural  relations  to  his  mother  Earth, 
can  produce  little  more  than  enough  for  his  own  nec- 
essary consumption,  it  follows  that  accumulation  of 
wealth  must  be  by  appropriating  the  products  of  other 
muscles  than  those  of  the  owners  of  such  wealth ;  and 
that  all  large  accumulations  of  wealth  imply  correla- 
tive poverty.  The  greater  the  accumulated  wealth 
—  and  the  law  of  wealth  is  increase  in  a  geometri- 
cal ratio — the  greater  the  poverty,  and  the  greater  the 
number  of  those  whose  only  possession  is  their  own 
muscles,  and  consequently  the  greater  the  competition 
for  the  privilege  of  employment  of  such  muscles. 
The  habit  of  accumulated  capital  to  retire  from  the 
labor-market  greatly  increases  this  competition.  The 
result  and  consummation  of  the  operation  of  these 


THE    AMERICAN     REPUBLIC.  147 

causes,  accumulation  and  monopoly,  is  well  seen  in 
the  condition  of  English  agricultural  laborers  and  ot 
manufacturing,  mining  and  mercantile  operatives,  and 
in  the  million  and  more  of  English  paupers,  who  are 
wholly  excluded  from  the  privilege  of  competition  for 
labor,  not  even  permitted  to  sweep  their  own  rooms, 
or  to  wash  their  own  rags,  because  this  labor  is  de- 
manded by  those  who  are  still  outside,  and  struggling 
to  keep  outside  of  the  poor-house. 

England  offers  good  illustrations  of  the  effects  ot 
obedience  to  the  laws  of  Political  Economy.  In  forty- 
five  years,  from  1770  to  1815,  the  number  of  pro- 
prietors in  England  and  Wales  diminished  from 
250,000  to  32,000.  What  has  been  going  on  since 
may  be  learned  from  recent  English  authorities. — 
' '  Fifty  years  ago,  farms  were  very  much  smaller, 
and  much  more  numerous  than  at  present.  Besides 
this,  there  were  many  small  farms  in  every  county 
of  England  and  Wales,  which  belonged  to  the  farmers 
themselves.  But  all  this  class  of  yeomanry  farmers 
have  disappeared." 

"  The  greater  proprietors  are  buying  up  all  the 
land  they  can  get  hold  of.  Whenever  one  of  the 
small  estates  is  put  up  for  sale,  the  great  proprietors 
outbid  the  peasants  and  purchase  it  at  all  costs.  The 
consequence  is,  that  the  number  of  small  estates  has 
been  rapidly  diminishing  in  all  parts  of  the  country. 
In  a  short  time  none  of  them  will  remain."  As  this 
kind  of  accumulation  has  been  going  on  since  1815, 
when  the  proprietors  were  only  32,000,  we  may  sup- 
pose that  they  are  now  not  far  from  20,000. 

In  the  mean  time  the  English  peasant,  become  al- 
together a  u  hind,"  or  day-laborer,  finds  himself  at 
the  bottom  of  a  long  series  of  middle-men  between 


148  THE     AMERICAN     REPUBLIC. 

himself  and  iny  lord,  the  proprietor,  whose  rent,  not 
only,  but  the  profits  of  all  the  intermediate  operators 
are  to  come  out  of  his  muscles.  How  much  of  the 
product  of  his  labor  is  left  for  himself,  and  what  is 
his  condition  physically  and  mentally,  one  may  con- 
jecture, but  1  doubt  whether  any  imagination  can 
come  up  to  the  reality  of  its  horrors  without  the  aid 
of  description,  for  which,  see  Colman's  "Agricultural 
Reports,'7  and  "  The  Social  Condition  of  the  English 
People",  Kay. 

These  descriptions  remind  one  of  the  condition  of 
the  French  peasantry,  "bestes  en  pare,"  just  before 
the  Revolution — See  Arthur  Young's  "Travels  in  the 
Kingdom  of  France." 

The  social  disease,  there,  called  for  and  received 
"heroic  treatment."  Does  the  English  aristocracy 
mean  to  wait  for  similar  remedies  ?  Perhaps  retri- 
butive justice  may  require  them  to  do  so. 

But,  it  might  be  well  for  us  of  the  American  Re- 
public— who  have  had  already  some  experience  of  re- 
tributive justice— to  remem'ber  that  these  and  other 
such  like  results  of  the  right  of  unlimited  property 
in  land  are  all  in  strict  obedience  to  the  laws  of  science, 
The  Science,  of  Political  Economy,  that  these  laws 
are  in  operation  here  also,  and  that  in  all  the  older 
States  they  are  tending  in  the  same  direction  towards 
similar  consequences. 

The  natural  effect  of  a  monopoly  of  the  land,  and 
of  aristocratic  landlordism  is  also  admirably  exhibit- 
ed in  Ireland,  as  described  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Colman 
in  his  Agricultural  Reports. 

•'c  I  never  saw  a  more  beautiful  country.  *  *  *  * 
But  the  wretchedness  of  the  great  mass  of  the  popu- 
lation is  utterly  beyond  all  description.  I  have  been 


THE     AMERICAN     REPUBLIC. 

into  cabins  dug  out  of  the  bog,  with  no  walls  but 
the  peat  mud  in  which  they  have  been  excavated, 
with  the  roof  covered  with  turf  and  straw,  and  the 
water  standing  in  puddles  on  the  outside,  without 
chimney,  window,  door,  floor,  bed,  chair,  table,  knife 
or  fork ;  the  whole  furniture  consisting  of  some  straw 
to  lie  down  upon,  a  pot  to  boil  the  potatoes  in,  a  tin 
cup  to  drink  out  of,  and  a  wicker  basket  to  take  up 
the  potatoes  in  after  they  are  boiled,  which  is  set 
down  in  the  middle  of  the  floor,  and  parents  and 
children  squat  down,  like  Hottentots,  on  the  ground, 
and  eat  their  food  with  their  fingers,  sometimes  with 
salt  and  often  without ;  and  this  is  literally  the 
whole  of  their  living,  day  after  day,  and  year  after 
year,  excepting  that  on  Christmas  day  they  contrive 
to  get  a  little  piece  of  meat  and  a  bit  of  bread.  You 
will  be  curious  to  know  if  I  have  seen  many  living 
so — yes,  hundreds — hundreds  ?  —  yes,  thousands  — • 
thousands  ?  —  yes,  a  million.  I  would  hardly  credit 
my  own  senses  until  I  went  into  the  cabins,  and  felt 
my  way  in  the  smoke  ahd  darkness,  and  actually 
put  my  hand  upon  the  turf  sides.  Here  they  all  lie 
down,  parents,  children,  brothers  and  sisters,  on  the 
straw  at  night,  huddled  together,  literally  naked  be- 
cause, —  the  Irish .  coachman  said  —  if  they  s  wore 
their  shirts  they  were  afraid  they  would  be  stol- 
en." 

But  English  hinds  and  Irish  tenants  are  not  the 
only  victims  of  British  "national  wealth."  Large 
accumulations  cf  capital,  the  separation  of  capital 
and  labor,  and  of  brain  and  muscles,  that  is  the  mo- 
nopoly of  wealth  and  of  intelligence,  have,  in  Eng- 
land, an  effect  upon  the  condition  of  the  operatives  in 
the  other  great  industries  similar  to  that  of  the  mono- 


150  THE    AMERICAN     REPUBLIC. 

poly  of  the  land  upon  the  agricultural  laborers.  In 
some  respects  the  manufacturing  and  mercantile 
operatives  and  the  unutterable  dregs  of  the  great 
commercial  towns  are  worse  off  than  the  laborers  in 
the  field.  At  least  they  are  more  affected  by  fluctua- 
tions of  trade.  Should  we  of  the  free  States  be  will- 
ing to  see,  here,  a  population  like  that  of  England 
and  Wales,  one-halt  of  which  can  neither  read  nor 
write,  one-eighth  of  which  are  paupers,  and  half  as 
many  more  are  half-paupers  ?  "VVe  have  only  to 
yield  loyal  obedience,  for  a  little  while,  to  the  laws 
of  laissez  faire  political  economy  until  they  produce 
similar  monopoly  of  the  land,  and  similar  accumula- 
tions of  wealth  when  we  shall  have  similar  correla- 
tive pauperism,  similar  consequent  ignorance  and  sim- 
ilar dregs  in  the  great  towns,  as  witness  New  York 
tenement-houses — already  it  is  the  rich,  the  accumu- 
lators of  land  and  of  capital,  who  object  to  paying 
their  proportion  of  school-taxes,  who,  having,  as  they 
think,  made  sure  of  their  own,  are  very  indifferent 
to  the  public  welfare.  If  there  are  many  exceptions 
here  to  the  general  character  of  the  class,  as  there  are 
also  in  the  political  aristocracy,  this  does  not  affect 
the  general  fact  that  successful  acquisitiveness  still 
grows  by  what  it  feeds  on  and  renders  its  victim 
grasping,  selfish  and  narrow-minded.  With  excess- 
ive wealth  and  consequent  excessive  poverty  and  ig- 
norance comes,  of  course,  excess  of  the  "working 
classes,"  and  what  does  Political  Economy  propose 
to  do  with  these,  its  legitimate  offspring  ? 

The  Malthusian  remedy  is  prescribed  in  England 
for  the  plethoric  condition  of  labor,  but  the  patient 
declines  to  take  it.  A  popular  American  treatise  on 
Political  Economy  also  assures  laborers  that  the  re- 


THE    AMERICAN     REPUBLIC.  151 

medy  for  competition  and  low  wages  is  in  their  own 
hands  —  they  have  only  to  cease  propagating,  or  to 
propagate  "  prudently,"  so  as  to  keep  the  number  of 
laborers  well  under  the  demand  of  capital.  This 
plan,  with  a  careful  statistician  in  the  employ  of  the 
laborers,  would,  doubtless,  work  admirably  were  it 
not  for  the  unlucky  fact  that  increasing  monopoly 
and  accumulating  capital  beget  laborers  much  faster 
than  the  laborers  themselves  can  do  it,  even  without 
11  prudence." 

Even  the  pious  Chalmers  asserts  "that  there  is  no 
other  method  by  which  wages  can  be  kept  permanent- 
ly high  than  by  the  moral  preventive  check  among 
the  working  classes  of  society."  That  is,  the  laborer 
must  keep  so  posted  in  regard  to  the  population  of 
his  class  as  to  be  able,  at  all  time?,  to  determine 
whether  it  would  be  prudent  to  invite  more  laborers 
into  this  crowded  world  to  compete,  by  and  by,  with 
himself — and  then  his  prudence  must  never  be  off 
guard ! 

But,  lest  the  landlords  and  capitalists  should  ob- 
ject to  this  prudent  information  offered  to  the  "  work- 
ing classes,"  Mr.  Chalmers  assures  them  that  "such 
is  the  strength  of  the  principle  of  population  that 
there  is  no  danger  but  wages  will  be  kept  sufficient- 
ly low."  It  seems,  then,  that  the  "  moral  preventive 
check,"  and  k£  the  strength  of  the  principle"  of  pop- 
ulation are  so  to  counterbalance  each  other  as  to  sat- 
isfy both  laborers  and  landlords.  This  is  the  protec- 
tion which  Political  Economy  offers  to  labor  against 
capital,  or  rather  to  muscles  against  brain.* 


*  See  Appendix. 


152  THE     AMERICAN     REPUBLIC. 

But,  as  this  plan  has  failed  hitherto,  what  other  re- 
ihedy  remains  than  that  towards  which  Christianity 
silently  tends  and  at  which  legislation  ought  constant- 
ly to  aim,  which  is,  not  merely  to  control  the  power 
of  capital  but  to  diminish  it.  The  power  of  capital 
for  evil  is  either  in  the  character  of  it,  as  where  it 
monopolizes  the  land  or  other  sources  of  wealth  as 
in  England  ;  or  in  large  accumulations  of  it  by  which 
it  causes  and  controls  a  vast  amount  of  labor,  render- 
ing the  laborers  progressively  more  and  more  exclu- 
sively dependent  upon  it,  reducing  them  to  mere  op- 
eratives subject  to  the  consequences  of  all  the  fluctu- 
ations of  trade,  commerce  and  politics,  as  in  English 
manufactures,  and  by  which  it  may  even  control 
public  opinion  and  government  itself;  or  in  its  per- 
version to  purposes  at  the  same  time  injurious  to  the 
interest,  health  and  morals  of  the  commnnity,  as  in 
the  conversion  of  bread-corn  into  alcoholic  drinks  ; 
or  in  combinations  or  other  methods  to  control  prices  ; 
and,  in  general,  in  the  disjunction,  separation  of  cap- 
ital and  labor,  so  that  they  become  antagonist  inter- 
ests :  while,  at  the  same  time,  it  increases  in  all  me- 
chanical employments,  the  proportion,  of  mere  labor- 
ers. Here  are  the  elements  of  a  dualism  whose  ex- 
tremes tend  ever  wider  asunder  and  which  naturally 
—  by  producing  excess  of  labor  —  extends  itself  to 
all  kinds  of  business.  It  is  plain,  as  has  been  before 
shown,  that  the  consequences  of  this  tendency  unre- 
stricted must  be  ultimately  fatal  to  the  free  State. 

Just  as  in  the  political  dualism  the  effect  of  Chris- 
tianity is  to  elevate  the  lower  extreme,  and  to  dimin- 
ish more  and  more  the  power  of  the  aristocracy,  until 
the  extremes  meet,  in  the  true  Republic,  in  a  political 
unity,  so  the  power  of  the  dominant  and  tyrannous 


THE     AMERICAN     REPUBLIC 


153 


extreme  in  the  business  duality  must  be  diminished, 
and  the  extremes  made  to  approach  each  other  imtii 
they  meet  in  the  fusion  and  unity  of  capital  aud  la- 
bor. As  the  business-aristocracy  is  but  a  lesser  de- 
gree of  political  aristocracy,  in  which,  if  left  to  it- 
self it  ultimately  ends,  so  the  same  causes  which 
limit  the  power  of  the  one  limit  that  of  the  other 
also.  But  as  the  aristocracy  of  capital  is  first  in 
the  order  of  time,  so,  for  obvious  reasons,  it  will  ever 
be  the  last  to  be  deprived  of  its  power.  Yet  the 
principles  of  Christianity  applied  progressively  more 
and  more  in  detail  to  the  business  relations  of  men ; 
a  deeper  sense  of  relative  justice  and  of  the  meaning 
of  the  command  "  thou  shalt  not  steal;"  a  larger  and 
wider  diffusion  of  intelligence  and  of  moral  influences 
among  laborers  :  wiser  statesmen  and  wiser  public 
opinion  in  regard  to  the  true  ends  of  the  State ;  the 
prohibition  of  accumulations  of  land  ;  le^al  protec- 
tion of  homesteads  ;  the  preservation  of  due  propor- 
tion among  the  great  industrial  organs  of  the  State — 
these  measures  and  others  of  the  same  tendency,  each 
of  which  Christianity  demands  and  will  ultimately  in- 
sist upon— cannot  fail  to  result  in  a  more  and  more  just 
distribution  of  wealth,  that  is,  a  larger  and  larger  pro- 
portion of  it  to  those  whose  labor  has  produced  it;  thus 
at  the  same  time  preventing  large  accumulations  of 
capital  in  the  hands  of  a  few,  and  dividing  it  widely 
among  the  many,  so  that  whatever  amount  of  capital 
may  be  required  for  any  legitimate  business  can  be  fur-, 
nished  by  the  laborers  themselves,  and  in  all  the  great 
industries  of  the  State  the  separate  classes  of  employ- 
ers and  employes  cease  to  exist.  Thus ,  while  the 
power  of  capital  for  evil,  where  it  has  been  most  ab- 
used, both  in  regard  to  individuals  and  to  the  State, 


154  THE    AMERICAN    REPUBLIC. 

will  be  taken  away,  its  power  for  good  will  be  vastly 
increased.  So,  in  Christ's  Name,  may  there  be  in- 
terpreted another  chapter  of  His  gospel  to  the  poor, 
and  the  problem  of  capital  and  labor  be  resolved. 
Towards  this  consummation  devoutly  to  be  wished,  if 
our  Constitutions,  and  our  legislation  hitherto  have 
done  little  directly,  there  is  now  at  least  an  embryo 
public  opinion,  and  beginnings  of  legislation,  though 
crude,  with  a  looking  of  laborers  in  the  right  direc- 
tion, which  give  assurance  that  when  the  end  is  dis- 
tinctly seen  the  means  will  not  be  wanting. 

The  aristocratic  side  of  this  duality  does  not, 
however,  yield  its  long,  unbroken  and  all  but  un- 
questioned sway  without  a  struggle.  It  is  even  more 
tenacious  of  power  than  political  and  ecclesiastical 
aristocracies .  In  most  countries  the  people  have  gone 
further  in  limiting  the  tyranny  of  Church  and  State 
despotisms  than  "  the  working  classes'  in  restraining 
the  power  of  capital.  If  the  French  people  had,  be- 
fore the  Revolution,  gained  something  in  respect  to 
life  and  liberty,  since  the  tenth  century  ;  if  political 
aristocracy  had  been  deprived  of  some  of  its  power; 
the  aristocracy  of  wealth,  the  monopoly  of  land,  with 
the  prescriptive  droits  of  the  Seigneurs  and  of  the 
Church  rendered  the  physical  condition  of  the  pea- 
santry little  less  deplorable  and  hopeless  than  that  of 
serfdom.  So  the  English  people  have  gained  im- 
mensely, in  the  same  period,  in  their  civil  and  politi- 
cal relations  to  the  government  and  aristocracy,  and 
especially  in  their  relations  to  the  church,  yet  surely, 
the  villeins  of  the  old  Normans  must  all  have  per- 
ished if  they  had  been  physically  worse  off  than 
their  descendants  the  present  villeins  of  capital  and 
monopoly. 


THE  AMERICAN  REPUBLIC.      155 

However  variously  modified,  and  adapted,  the 
power  of  capital,  essentially  the  same,  has  always 
been  retained.  Or  if  it  has  seemed  to  yield  in 
one  direction  it  has  been  to  be  more  aggressive  in 
another.  Now,  and  here,  in  our  own  country,  it 
has  undertaken  to  resume  all,  in  form  and  sub- 
stance, and  principle,  of  what  it  claims  to  be  its  an- 
cient, natural  and  divine  rights.  Hence  comes  irre- 
pressible and  bloody  conflict.  The  South,  backed  by 
the  sympathies  and  material  aid  of  all  the  old  politi- 
cal, ecclesiastical,  commerical,  manufacturing  and 
landed  aristocracries,  proclaims,  in  the  name  of  Satan 
and  paganism:  CAPITAL  SHALL  OWN  LABOR.  The 
North,  by  its  princples,  in  its  feelings,  and  more 
and  more  in  its  conscious  purpose  and  its  legislation, 
with  the  sympathy  of  every  people,  and  the  prayers 
of  all  Christians  and  believers  in  rightousness,  says 
no  !  but  in  the  name  of  God  and  of  Christianity  : 
LET  LABOR  OWN  CAPITAL.  Here  are  a  pair  of  an- 
tagonist principles  the  most  antagonstic  of  all  antag- 
onisms. They  have  come  in  conflict  not  now  for  the 
first  time  nor  will  this  be  the  last.  This  is  in  fact 
the  conflict  of  all  ages  and  of  all  States.  In  the 
triumphs  of  the  first  of  these  principles,  of  which 
slavery  is  only  one  of  the  protean  forms,  are  the 
sources  and  strength  of  all  other  aristocracies  and 
despotisms.  The  triumph  of  the  second  will  be,  in 
relation  to  the  State,  the  ultimate  and  crowning 
triumph  of  Christianity,  and  the  complete  realization 
of  the  true  Republic,  the  true  Commonwealth. 

If,  in  this  brief  review  of  the  Organic  Laws  and 
the  legislation  of  The  American  Republic,  it  appears 
but  as  a  poor  and  thin  "  Shadow  of  Christianity," 
which  has  not  yet  availed  to  heal  all  our  diseases,  a 


156  THE     AMERICAN     REPUBLIC. 

very  imperfect  realization  of  the  principles  of  Chris- 
tianity applied  to  the  State  ;  if  our  early  statesmen 
did  not  yet  see  clearly  all  that  Christianity  requires 
of  the  State,  yet  it  is,  and  will  be,  glory  enough  for 
them,  the  pioneers  of  the  Republic,  to  have  uttered 
the  principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
the  true  interpretation,  so  far,  of  Christianity  ap- 
plied to  politics ;  and  what  a  leaven,  next  after  the 
divine  leaven  of  Christianity  itself,  not  only  in  the 
politics  of  the  Republic,  but  in  the  hearts  and  hopes 
of  the  people  of  all  nations.  If  the  Republic  has  not 
yet  realized  even  the  principles  of  the  Declaration, 
which  are  little  more  than  prohibitive,  and  far  short 
of  the  positive  demands  of  Christianity,  yet  that  their 
leaven  has  not  been  idle,  witness,  in  regard  to  almost 
the  only  legal  violation  of  them,  their  ever  more  and 
more  irrepressible,  and  more  and  more  victorious 
conflict  with  slavery.  If  there  are  still,  even  in  the 
free  States,  principles  not  yet  wholly  discarded, 
which  always  result  in  practical  injustice  and  tend  to 
political  inequality,  it  is  much,  very  much,  to  have 
got  rid  of  all  hereditary  political  aristocracy,  mostly 
of  prelatic  domination,  and  especially  of  the  combi- 
nation and  conspiracy  of  the  two,  that  fountain  of 
the  corruption  and  perversion  of  Christianity  and  of 
the  practical  enslavement  of  the  bodies  end  souls  of 
the  people  ;  and  much  more  is  it  to  have  arrived  at 
earnest  discussion  ot  the  method,  and  at  the  deter- 
mination to  find  the  method,  by  which  to  put  an  end 
to  the  tyranny  of  capital  over  labor.  If  occupations 
are  still  permitted  in  some  States  which  are  fountains 
of  poverty  and  vice  and  cr'me,it  is  something  that  pub- 
lic opinion  has  declared  war  against  them,  and  that, 
though  backed,  some  of  them,  by  unrighteously 


THE     AMERICAN     REPUBLIC.  157 

acquired  wealth,  their  abatement  is  only  a  question 
of  time.  If  there  is  still,  even  in  New  England, 
some  ignorance  in  regard  to  the  most  elementary 
learning,  this  is  almost  wholly  the  product  of  Euro- 
pean aristocracies,  and  it  is  something  that  the  means 
of  education  are  provided,  as  in  all  the  other  non- 
glaveholding  States,  and  offered  freely  to  every 
child.  Let  us  hope  that  it  will  soon  be  the  duty  of 
somebody,  under  penalty,  to  see  that  these  provisions 
are,  in  every  case,  made  efficient.  In  general,  if,  in 
many  respects,  the  Republic  has  failed  hitherto  to 
realize  fully  the  true  idea  of  a  Commonwealth,  it  is 
much,  that,  while  the  consequences  of  imperfect  leg- 
islation are  provided  for,  or  at  least  alleviated,  by 
private  liberality,  public  opinion  demands  more  and 
more  that  the  sources  also  of  evil  be  attacked.  And; 
herein  is  a  great  advantage  of  the  self-governing, 
Belt-educating  State,  that  the  good  and  the  wise  may 
follow  the  method  of  Christianity,  lay  the  axe  to  the 
root  of  the  tree ;  while,  in  aristocracies,  they  can 
only  dip  at  the  streams  of  evil  of  which  misorganiza- 
tion  and  misgovernment  are  the  ever-flowing  foun- 
tains If  the  Republic  is  still  far  from  its  ideal,  it  is 
something  that  it  is  moving  in  that  direction,  and 
that,  in  its  practical  results. — for  slavery  is  but  an 
incubus  inherited  from  Aristocracy,  foreign  to  the 
Republic,  and  being  rapidly  thrown  off — it  is  far  IB 
advance  of  all  other  nations. 

If  there  must  be  a  wider  and  deeper  infusion  of 
the  salt  of  Christianity,  it  is  something,  that,  besides 
the  increasing  practical  piety  of  Christian  men  and 
women,  and  besides  a  more  general  and  more  sincere 
recognition  and  awe  of  God's  hand  controling  the  af- 
fairs of  men — when,  before,  were  political  meetings  • 
H 


158  THE     AMERICAN     REPUBLIC. 

opened  with  prayer,  and  closed  with  the  Doxology  ? — 
besides  this  the  clergy,  universally,  even  that  class 
which  like  other  aristocracies  has  hitherto  inclined  to 
be  ''conservative" — of  evil, — even  they,  with  the 
exception  of  now  and  then  a  paganized  bishop,  are 
preaching  more  and  more  fully  and  earnestly  the 
true  principles  and  doctrines  of  the  New  Testament. 
Have  we,  therefore,  occasion  for  discouragement  ?  or 
have  we  not  rather  for  hope,  that,  taught,  by  our  own 
present  experience,  the  just  consequences  of  admit- 
ting an  unrighteous  principle  into  our  fundamental 
laws,  we  shall  eliminate  from  them,  not  only  that 
which  is  the  cause  of  our  present  disaster  and  dishon- 
or, but  all  others  of  like  character,  and  be  on  our 
guard  hereafter  that  no  more  such  be  admitted.  So, 
if  we  are  capable  of  learning  by  experience,  may 
our  present  punishment  be  greatly  to  our  future 
amendment. 

Let  us  hope,  then,  and  pray  and  labor,  and  be 
confident,  that,  notwithstanding  our  own  imperfec- 
tions, and  in  spite  of  the  malevolence  of  those  who 
hate  because  they  envy  and  tear  us,  even  with  the 
filthy  stream  ever  inevitably  flowing  in  upon  us  from 
the  aristocratic  fountains  of  Europe,  let  us  not  doubt 
that  the  American  Republic  shall  yet  apprehend 
clearly,  and  realize,  fully  as  the  perverseness  of  man 
permits,  the  true  ends  of  the  human  State,  and  so 
attain  to  "  the  utmost  perfection  of  which  it  is  capa- 
ble according  to  its  rank  and  kind." 


APPENDIX. 


While  these  sheets  are  going  through  the  pros-.s,  I  have  pro- 
cured a  copy  of  the  latest  edition  of  John  Stuart  Mill's  "  Princi- 
ples of  Political  Economy,"  and  am  happy  to  find  that,  on  several 
important  points,  especially  in  their  "  Applications  to  Social 
Philosophy,"  his  principles  nearly  or  quite  coincide  with,  and 
sustain  by  his  great  authority,  the  opinions  indicated  in  tho 
chapter  of  this  treatise  on  "The  American  ;.u'puHic." 

He  advocates  free  trade  in  land.  Vet  his  principles  imply  li- 
mitation of  quantity  in  both  directions.  For  he  thinks— an  un- 
expected opinion  in  an  Englishman — that  production  is  increased 
by  small  farms,  and  also — a  much  more  important  point — that 
the  intellectual,  moral  and  social  character  of  small  proprietors, 
as  well  as  their  physical  well-being,  is  superior  to  that  of  agri- 
cultural laborers.  If  there  is  tendency  to  division  of  land  for 
agriculture — of  which  he  thinks  there  is  little  danger — beyond 
a  quantity  sufficient  for  the  support  of  a  family,  he  advises  legal 
restraint.  Indeed  he  would  place  the  land  wholly  in  the  power 
of  the  State  without  regard  to  private  ownership.  "When  the 
*  sacredness  of  property'  is  talked  of,  it  is  to  be  remembered, 
that  any  such  sacredness  does  not  belong  in  the  same  degree  to 
landed  property.  No  man  made  the  lam).  It  is  the  original  in- 
heritance of  the  whole  species.  The  appropriation  is  wholly  a 
question  of  expediency.  The  claim  of  the  landowners  to  the  land 
is  altogether  subord  nate  to  the  general  policy  of  the  State.  The 
principle  of  property  gives  them  no  right  to  the  land,  but  only  a 
right  to  compensation  for  whatever  portion  of  their  interest  in  the 
land  it  may  be  the  policy  of  the  State  to  deprive  them  of." 

This  is  certainly  sufficiently  radical  treatment  of  the  land,  and 
gives  the  State  power  to  limit  ownership  in  all  directions.  That 
it  should  be  limited  in  the  direction  of  too  much  is  as  desirable  as 
it  is  that  it  should  be  cultivated  by  many  proprietors  instead  of 
hordes  of  mere  agricultural  laborers.  That  there  is  a  tendency 
to  hurtful  accumulations  of  the  land,  and  therefore  need  of  limi- 
tation by  the  State,  is  proved  by  the  history  of  its  distribution 
among  all  nations.  We  have  only  to  call  to  mind  the  relation  of 


160  APPENDIX. 

the  cultivators  to  the  land  in  Asia,  the  "  latifu\dia' *  of  the  Ro- 
man Senators,  half  the  land  of  Europe  th%  property  of  the  church 
in  the  middle  ages,  ownership  in  England,  &c.  Or,  if  it  be  said 
that  these  are  results  of  obsolete  civilizations,  we  may  see  the 
same  tendency  in  this  country  in  spite  of  perfectly  free  trade  in 
land  and  equal  division  among  heirs,  where,  not  only  in  the  late 
slave  States,  but  in  the  free,  and  even  in  New  England  the  pro- 
portion of  laborers  to  proprietors  is  on  the  increase.  There  is  a 
gratification  to  the  pride  of  wealth  in  being  lord  of  the  soil  be- 
sides the  social  and  political  influence  whi  h  goes  along  with  it. 
Even  the  vulgar  rich  like  to  sport  their  parks  and  drives,  not  be- 
cause they  know  how  to  enjoy  them,  but  because  they  fancy  that 
they  confer  a  patrician  air  upon  their  possessors. 

In  regard  to  accumulations  of  wealth,  his  doctrines,  though 
eminently  just,  would  be  reckoned  over-radical  even  in  Massa- 
chusetts. He  sees  "  no  reason  why  collateral  inheritance  should 
exist  at  all."  The  property  in  case  of  intestacy  "  should  escheat 
to  the  State."  The  interests  of  children,  he  thinks,  would  be  bet- 
ter consulted  by  a  moderate  than  by  a  large  provision.  This, 
therefore,  is  all  that  is  due  to  them  from  the  parent,  or  from  the 
State  in  case  the  parent  dies  intestate.  Even  the  power  of  be- 
'quest  should  be  subject  to  limitation. 

His  plan  of  "  raising  a  class  of  small  proprietors"  by  dividing 
"".common  land"  "into  sections  of  five  acres  each  or  there- 
abouts, to  be  conferred  in  absolute  property  on  individuals  of  the 
laboring  class  who  would  reclaim  and  bring  them  into  cultiva- 
tion by  their  own  labor" ;  and  to  make  these  small  estates  if  ne- 
cessary "  indivisible  by  law" — this  plan  is  a  very  near  approach 
to  the  true  idea  of  a  homestead 

He  does  not  join  tne  Bishops  in  exhorting  slaves  and  other 
*' laboring  poor"  to  "  be  content  with  the  condition  in  which 
God  has  placed  them,"  and  then,  on  the  approach  of  starvation, 
dole  out  to  them  in  charity  a  minute  proportion  of  the  products 
of  their  own  labor.  He  does  not  believe  such  relations  to  be  of 
God's  appointment,  and  therefore  permanent.  "  When  I  speak, 
either  in  this  place  or  elsewhere,  of  "  the  labouring  classes,"  or 
of  labourers  as  a  "  class,"  I  use  those  phrases  in  compliance  with 
eastern,  and  as  descriptive  of  an  existing,  but  by  no  means  a  ne- 
cessary or  permanent,  state  of  social  relations.  I  do  not  recog- 
nize as  either  just  or  salutary,  a  state  of  society  in  which  there  is 
any  **  class"  which  is  not  laboring ;  any  human  beings  exempt 
from  bearing  their  share  of  the  necessary  labors  of  human  life, 
except  those  unable  to  labor,  or  who  have  fairly  earned  rest  by 
previous  toil.  So  long,  however,  as  the  great  social  evil  exists 
'<of  a  no n -laboring  class,  laborers  also  constitute  a  class,  and 


APPENDIX.  1GI 

may  be  spoken  of,  though  only  provisionally,  in  that  character." 
The  time  has  gone  by  when  the  "rich  should  be  in  loco  parentfs 
to  the  poor,  guiding  and  restraining  them  like  children."  AEH! 
when  they  are  thankfully  to  receive  such  wages,  such  proportion 
of  the  products  of  their  own  labor,  as  their  employers  please  t» 
offer  them.  "  The  working  classes  have  taken  their  interests  into 
their  own  hands,  and  are  perpetually  showing  that  they  think  tbe 
interests  of  their  employers  not  identical  with  their  own,  but  op- 
posite to  them."  This  is  welcome  language  from  an  Englishman, 
and  member  of  the  British  Parliament. 

His  great  hope,  in  regard  to  "the  future  of  the  labouring 
classes,"  is  in  their  proper  education,  and  in  the  combination  «1" 
labour  and  capital— not  the  union  of  mere  labour  with  mere  ca- 
p'tal,  when,  even  where  labour,  besides  wages,  receives  a  certain 
percentage,  just  to  make  it  more  faithful  and  efficient,  capital 
gets  the  lion's  .share;— but  the  association  of  individuals  each  of 
whom  furnishes  both  capital  and  labour,  so  that  in  all  industrial 
employments  cvipital  shall  no  longer  own  labcur,  either  legally  or 
actually,  but  labour  .shall  own  capital.  I  find  that  in  Europe- 
much  in-ill  -  !,  \>  already  boon  done  in  that  direction  than  I  had 
•opposed. 

He  is  decidedly  in  favor  of  free  trade  commercially,  us  all 
Englishmen  are  bound  to  be,  .mi  to  all  unnecessary  in- 

termeddling of  government  with   individual  freedom  in  business 
matters.     Yet    he  would  limit  laissez  fairc  in  many   important 
respects.  Government  should  not  only  provide  the  means  of  edu- 
cation for  all  the  people,  but  "  require  i'mm  all  the  people  that 
they  shall  possess  instruction  in  certain  things,"  if  not  at  the 
public  expense  then  at  their  own.     Government   should  interfere* 
with  the  free  control  of  parents  over  their  children  to  prevent 
their  being  abused,  murdered,  (burial  clubs?)   over-worked,  or- 
uneducated. 

He  would  make  the  practical  maxim  of  leaving  contracts  free 
subject  to  many  limitations,  and  after  contracts  are  made  govern- 
ment should  decide  whether  they  are  fit  to  be  enforced. 

In  regard  to  roads,  canals,  railways,  gas,  and  water  works, 
which  are,  for  the  most  part,  practically,  chartered  monopolies, 
he  thinks  they  should  either  be  under  direct  government  man- 
agement, or  that  government  should  "subject  the  business  to 
reasonable  conditions  for  the  general  advantage,  or  retain  such 
power  over  it,  that  the  profits  of  the  monopoly  may  at  least  be  ob- 
tained for  the  public." 

This,  like  his  advice  in  regard  to  inheritances,  is  better  than 
nothing,  though  a  very  imperfect  remedy,  inasmuch  as,  by  this 
method,  the  extortionous  gains  reach  only  in  very  small  propor- 


162  APPENDIX  . 

tion  the  muscles  which  produced  them.  The  aim  should  be  to 
prevent  accumulations  which  the  public  good  requires  to  be  con- 
fiscated. Great  wealth  is  the  correlative  of  poverty,  and  the  ele- 
ment of  injustice  which  has  somewhere  entered  into  it  cannot  be 
eliminated  by  any  after  methods  of  restoration  to  the  rightful 
owners. 

It  is  alto  to  be  considered  whether  the  law  may  not  sometimes 
interfere  to  give  validity  to  concert  among  individuals  in  regard 
to  matters  affecting  their  common  interest,  as  where  laborers 
agree  that  a  certain  number  of  hours  shall  be  reckoned  a  day's 
work. 

lie  would  relax  his  antiprotectionist  doctrines  in  favor  of  "  the 
interests  of  national  defence."  But  what  article  is  there,  almost, 
the  home  production  of  which  may  not  at  some  time,  at  any 
time,  lie  necessary  for  the  national  defence,  and  whose  production 
might  not  for  a  time  need  protection,  or  if  very  important  for  na- 
tional defence,  ought  it  not  to  have,  if  necessary,  permanent  pro- 
tection? 

He  admits  too  that,  "  on  mere  principles  of  political  economy, 
protecting  duties  may  be  defensible  where  they  are  imposed 
temporarily  (especially  in  a  young  and  rising  nation)  in  hopes  of 
naturalizing  a  foreign  industry,  in  itself  perfectly  suitable  to  the 
circumstances  of  the  country." 

There  is  applicable  here  a  remark  which  he  makes  in  another 
connection.  "Much  has  been  said  of  the  good  economy  of  im- 
porting commodities  from  the  place  where  they  can  be  bought 
cheapest ;  while  the  good  economy  of  producing  them  where  they 
can  be  produced  cheapest,  is  comparatively  little  thought  of." 

When  a  commodity  can  be,  after  temporary  protection,  pro- 
duced as  cheap  at  home  as  abroad,  it  is  cheaper  produced  at  home 
by  the  cost  of  freight  from  abroad.  When  by  the  naturalization 
of  all  such  foreign  industries  the  natural  resources  of  the  State 
have  been  developed,  and  all  those  important  to  national  defence 
have  been  established,  for  how  many  industries  would  protection 
be  needed  or  asked  for  ?  Certainly  nobody  would  ask  protection 
for  the  production  of  rice  in  Massachusetts,  or  of  cotton  in  Eng- 
land, or,  in  general,  for  that  of  any  commodity  which,  through 
defect  of  soil,  climate,  or  any  other  permanent  condition  must 
cost  more  at  home  than  from  abroad.  In  all  such  cases  com- 
merce, plainly,  should  be  the  complement  of  other  industries,  un- 
leas  the  home-production  of  the  article  is  indispensable  to  national 
defence.  But  if  iron,  when  the  manufacture  should  be  established, 
could  be  produced  as  cheap  in  Pennsylvania  as  in  Sweden,  or  in 
England,  should  the  cost  of  freight  be  added  to  the  price,  and  the 
profits  of  the  manufacturers  abroad,  of  the  carriers  and  import- 


APPENDIX.  I0o 

ers,  be  protected  by  refusing  protection  ?  How  often  is  free  trade 
free  to  monopolize  the  market,  and,  by  conspiracies  of  old  and 
rich  establishments,  to  break  down  and  prevent  any  foreign  ris- 
ing competition,  and  so  to  dictate  its  own  extortionous  prices,  and 
transform  free  trade  into  free  stealing!  Or  the  home  "  commer- 
cial interest"  might  prove  itself  a  self-interest  by  preventing  for 
its  own  profit  a  home  manufacture  required  by  the  common  in- 
terest. 

There  can  be  no  objection,  however,  to  Mr.  Mill's  free  trade, 
eince  he  allows  protection  to  all  industries  which  can  be  success- 
fully naturalized,  and  to  all  which  are  necessary  to  national  de- 
fence. 

Free  trade,  however,  unlimited  foreign  commerce,  Ins  rela- 
tions and  bearings,  moral,  social,  and  political,  much  higher 
than  those  of  mere  Political  Economy. 

In  regard  to  Mr.  Mill's  eulogy  of  foreign  commerce  as  the 
great  civilizer  of  barbarians,  as  the  source  of  important  inf- 
tual  and  moral  good  influence  among  civilized  nations,  as  first 
teaching  "  nations  to  see  with  good  willthc  wealth  and  prosperi- 
ty of  one  another,"  &c. — it  is  perhaps  indicathe  of  ill  temper 
not  to  be  pleased  with  M>  fair  a  picture,  but,  houever  disp.-sed  to 
admire  it,  it  is  difficult  to  avoid  that  it  .shouM  >ujxa>t  the  recol- 
lection o(  some  facts  in  the  history  of  oommerc  i'oth 
those  of  ancient  and  of  modern  times.  Let  us  forget  that  com- 
merce originated  in  piracy — that  was  a  long  time  ago.  But  how 
did  the  early  commercial  States  of  the  Mediterranean,  Tyre, 
Athens,  Carthage,  civilize  the  barbarians  upon  its  borders?  By 
conquest,  oppressive  tribute,  "slavery  and  the  whip."  Which 
are  also  reckoned  good  method* for  barbarians  by  some  modern 
commercial  people. 

The  Venetians  also,  in  the  middle  ages,  illustrated  the  comity 
of  the  commercial  character,  especially  by  exporting  from  Europe 
children,  mule  as  well  as  female,  both  for  the  harems  of  their 
Eastern  friends  the  Mihornedans. 

In  modern  times,  the  treatment  of  the  natives  of  South  Ameri- 
ca and  of  the  West  Indies  by  Spain  is  an  example  of  the  commer- 
cial civilization  of  barbarians.  The  treatment  of  Africa  by  all  the 
commercial  people  of  Europe,  especially  by  England,  who  nego- 
tiated a  monopoly  of  the  slave-trade,  is  another  good  example. — 
Indeed,  it  is  claimed,  and  that  too  by  Bishops,  that  the  commer- 
cial method  of  civilization,  by  exportation  and  sale,  is,  for  Afri- 
cans, superior  even  to  that  of  Christianity. 

For  the  "  good  will"  of  "  merchant  princes"  towards  nations 
incapable  of  self-defence,  see  the  history  of  the  East  India  Com- 
pany, and  particularly  the  survey  of  certain  provinces  by  Bucha- 


164  A  I'  P  K  S  DI  X  . 

nan,  published  by  Martin — also  the  *'  opium  war,"  the  compul- 
sory production  of  opium  in  India  to  be  thrust  upon  the  Chinese, 
for  their  civilization,  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet-  also  the  com- 
mercial method  of  "  opening  the  ports'*  of  China,  Japan,  Siam, 
&c.  The  history  of  the  Dutch  in  Java  and  the  Phillipines  also  il- 
lustrates the  "good  will"  of  the  commercial  character. 

It  would,  perhaps,  not  be  fair  to  mention  the  wars  of  modern 
Europe  originating  in  commercial  jealousy.  Mr.  Mill  might  say 
they  were  owing  to  false  and  obsolete  doctrines  of  Political  Eco- 
nomy. Would  this  excuse  in  seme  degree  their  cruelty  and  sel- 
fishness ? 

What,  then,  shall  we  say  to  a  recent  case  not  arising  under 
obsolete  doctrines — a  remarkable  practical  commentary  upon  the 
fact  that,  * £  commerce  teaches  nations  to  see  with  gocd  will  the 
wealth  and  prosperity  of  one  another" — a  case  where  the  insur- 
gents of  a  friendly  people  were,  vpon  a  mere  declaration  of  their 
hostile  intentions,  given,  to  their  great  advantage,  the  rights  of 
belligerents  ;  and  the  whole  mercantile  Interest  of  a  certain  State 
engaged  eagerly  in  almost  open  piracy  and  plunder  of  the  com- 
merce of  a  rival  nation,  and,  in  the  most  exulting  and  insulting- 
language,  expressed  its  joy  at  the  probable  ruin  of  "  the  wealth 
and  prosperity"  of  a  kindred  State  ! 

These  facts  are,  I  think,  a  sufficient  defence  of  what  I  have  said 
of  the  natural  character,  and  tendency  to  excess,  of  commerce  ; 
to  which  if  there  is  added  the  consideration  of  the  immense  masses 
of  mere  operatives  of  the  lowest  grade  which  it  employs,  and  the 
character  for  sharp  dealing  of  almost  all  grades  of  shopkeepers  in 
large  commercial  cities,  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  the  "moral 
influence"  of  commerce  is  yrcat,  but  that  it  is  yood  is  not  at  all 
obvious. 

The  great  importance,  and  often  the  necessity  of  foreign  com- 
merce, especially  for  small  States  having  little  variety  of  climate, 
and  of  agricultural  and  mining  products,  is  not  to  be  denied.  The 
co mvarative  cost  of  production,  in  two  distant  countries,  both  of 
which  are  capable  of  producing  two  given  commodities  may  also 
render  an  interchange  of  present  mutual  advantage  notwithstand- 
ing the  labor  expended  in  the  double  freight. 

It  may,  for  example,  be  for  the  present  mutual  advantage  of 
the  parties  that  Illinois  should  send  wheat  to  England,  and  re- 
ceive English  cloths  in  return  But,  surely,  unless  it  is  desirable 
to  increase  the  sum  total  of  human  labor,  on  the  principle  of  fur- 
nishing employment  for  the  working  classes,  there,  is  here  an  im- 
mense waste  of  labor,  and  however  it  might  be  for  the  English 
manufacturers  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  it  would  be  for  the  in- 
terest of  the  Illinois  farmers  if  the  consumers  of  their  wheat  were 
at  Chicago  instead  of  Manchester. 


APPENDIX  .  165 

It  cannot  be  made  to  appear  from  such  instances  of  temporary 
or  permanent  mutual  benefit  by  interchange  of  commodities  that 
the  common  interest  of  each  nation  will  be  best  secured  by  leav- 
ing each  particular  Interest  to  seek  unrestrained  its  own  self- 
interest  ;  nor  that  the  common  good  of  all  commercial  nations  is 
best  promoted  where  each  great  Interest  and  each  nation  seeks 
wholly  its  own  uncontrolled  except  by  the  "  good  will"  that  Mr. 
Mill  speaks  of.  But  such  is  unlimited  free  trade,  more  appro- 
priately named  free  fight,  in  which,  as  in  all  other  free  fights,  tho 
weaker  goes  to  the  wall. 

The  conclusions  of  Political  Economy,  so  far  as  it  has  any 
claim  to  the  character  of  a  science,  imply  that  the  human  agent* 
who  execute  its  laws  are  as  impassive  and  passionless  as  the 
wheels  of  a  spinning  jenny,  while,  in  fact,  the  practical  results  of 
the  play  of  the  real  forces  are,  for  the  most  part,  such  as  chance 
advantage  among  equals,  or  unprincipled  power  in  relation  to 
weakness,  or  unfeeling  wealth  in  relation  to  poverty,  or  selfish  in- 
tellect in  relation  to  ignorance  may  choose  to  determine. 

Mr.  Mill  seems  to  have  transferred  his  own  amiable  character 
to  his  ideal  of  foreign  commerce,  and  to  look  upon  all  nations  as 
members  of  one  great  family,  each  by  free  commercial  intercoureg 
promoting  and  rejoicing  in  its  own  prosperity  and  that  of  all  tho 
others,  although  he  is  far  enough  from  attributing  such  "  good 
will"  to  individuals  and  interests  in  the  same  nation,  and  is  se- 
vere on  the  relations  of  the  higher  classes  to  the  lower,  the  rich 
to  the  poor,  and  the  antagonism  of  capital  and  labor.  He  seemi 
not  to  have  conceived  of  a  single  State  as  a  complete  organic 
whole  performing  all  its  own  functions  and  maintaining  all  iUl 
natural  organs  in  their  due  measure  and  just  relations  to  each 
other,  or,  if  any  legitimate  organ  is  deficient,  making  foreign 
commerce  only  the  complement  of  its  own  fully  developed  re- 
sources. But  this  surely  is  the  only  true  and  safe  policy  for  eve- 
ry State,  in  proportion  to  its  natural  ability  to  realize  it,  until 
the  good  will  of  nations  towards  each  other  shall  actually  become 
such  as  Mr.  Mill  speaks  of. 

Considering  Mr.  Mill's  opinions  in  regard  to  the  just  distribu- 
tion of  wealth,  and  the  probability  of  its  not  distant  accomplish- 
ment, I  am  surprised  to  find  that  he  agrees  violently  with  Mal- 
thus  and  Chalmers  in  regard  to  the  necessity  of  the  "moral, 
preventive  check"  upon  population  as  the  indispensable  remedy 
for  low  wages — and  that  he  believes  it  can  be  made  an  efficient 
remedy.  First,  in  regard  to  the  efficiency  oi  this  remedy — what 
is  the  probability  of  the  "laboring  classes"  being  elevated  to  tho 
requisite  grade  of  intelligence  and  prudence,  until  the  remedy  for 
low  wages  is  otherwise  first  found,  and  continued  long  enough  to 


166  APPENDIX. 

confirm  the  laborer  in  habits  of  comfort,  and  to  give  him  a  res- 
pectability and  self-respect,  to  preserve  which,  he  will  be  ready 
to  control  the  strongest  instincts  and  affections  of  his  nature. — 
Will  laborers  as  a  class  be,  thus,  or  in  any  other  way,  at  all  times 
ready  to  forego  a  present  indulgence  through  prudent  foresight  of 
a  possible  but  uncertain  inconvenience  twenty  years  hence  ?  Or, 
is  it  likely  that  public  opinion  and  private  conscience  will  ever  be 
brought  to  demand  so  imperatively  as  to  control  "the  strength  of 
the  principle  of  population"  to  the  degree  that  it  shall  be  ac- 
counted a  vice  and  a  crime  for  a  married  pair  traders  lampada 
vita  to  more  than  a  single  pair  of  offspring  to  take  their  own 
places  ?  If  this  were  possible  at  what  a  cost  of  much  more  immo- 
ral and  dangerous  practices  would  it  be  attained. 

Second,  in  regard  to  the  necessity  of  this  remedy.  To  us,  in 
this  country ,  where  we  both  produce  and  import  population  ad 
libitum,  we  cannot  appreciate  the  necessity.  The  Malthusian  me- 
thod strikes  an  American  as  ridiculously  inefficient  and  abortive. 
Doubtless  it  would  be  a  convenient  method  of  diminishing  the 
competition  for  labor,  if  the  laborers  should  choose  to  adopt  it, 
morally  much  less  objectionable  than  that  by  "  burial  clubs." — 
Cut  that  any  government  not  a  mere  faineant  should  admit  its 
necessity,  or  that  there  can  exist  any  necessity  requiring  such  a 
remedy  within  any  definite  number  of  millenniums  is  quite  incre- 
dible. "Why,  the  land  of  the  planet  can  feed  thirty  thousand 
millions  of  men,  and  the  waters  probably  ^alf  as  many  more,  and 
it  has  at  present  little  more  than  one  thousand  millions. 

Undoubtedly,  as  Mr.  Mill  says,  "  there  is  not  much  satisfaction 
in  contemplating  the  world  with  nothing  left  to  the  spontaneous 
activity  of  nature  ;  every  flowery  waste  or  natural  pasture 
ploughed  up,  all  quadrupeds  or  birds  which  are  not  domesticated 
for  man's  use  exterminated  as  his  rivals  for  food,  every  hedgerow 
or  superfluous  tree  rooted  out,  and  scarcely  a  place  left  where  a 
wild  shrub  or  flower  could  grow  without  being  eradicated  as  a 
weed  in  the  name  of  improved  agriculture. ' ' 

Who  would  not  wish  that  all  such  wild  ruralities  may  not  be- 
colne  extinct  in  his  time?  But,  at  the  rate  of  increase  of  popu- 
lation for  the  last  five  or  six  thousand  years,  it  will  require  not 
far  from  two  hundred  thousand  years,  before  the  Earth  will  ar- 
rive at  the  unhappy  condition  of  surface  deprecated  by  Mr  Mill. 
Surely  we  may,  without  selfishness,  neglect  to  look  out  for  the  es- 
thetic enjoyment  of  our  posterity  beyond  that  period. 

If  then,  we  can  attain  to  a  just  distribution  of  the  products  of 
labor,  and  of  labor  itself,  an  abatement  of  the  drones  of  society, 
when  the  law  of  Christianity  shall  be  executed — "  if  any  man  will 
network  neither  shall  he  eat" — when  men  shall  no  longer  be  di- 


APPENDIX.  107 

vided  into  great  but  unequal  castes,  one  to  perform  exclusively 
the  function  of  the  brain,  another  that  of  the  muscles,  and  a 
third  fruyes  consumer e  nati,  but  the  existence  of  a  voluntary 
organ  shall  carry  with  it  the  right  and  the  duty  ol  its  legitimate 
exercise  ;  when  governments  shall  adopt  the  natural  and  obvious 
remedy  for  over-population,  always  instinctively  known  and 
practiced  by  animals,  COLONIZATION,  as  exemplified  by  Mr.  Mill 
himself;  when  men  shall  thus  follow  Mr.  Mill's  own  excellent 
teaching,  and  obey  God's  second  great  command  to  "subdue  the 
Earth,"  may  they  not,  then,  also  obey  the  first,  "  be  fruitful," 
and  pass  "  the  torch  of  life,"  not  with  niggard  and  selfish  pre- 
caution and  fear  of  being  encroached  upon,  but  freely  and  merri- 
ly, so  it  be  normally,  from  hand  to  hand. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

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